Bob Morely was a counselor for a senior high summer camp in California. One summer Bob was between regular jobs, and was therefore rather short of cash. Word of his situation spread around camp, and the campers took up a special collection and raised a hundred dollars which they presented to him.
Now the camp had a tradition of having a farewell party on the last day, Friday night. The youth would usually pool their money together, and one of the counselors would go to town and purchase snack food for them. Bob immediately realized that the money that had been given to him was the money that the campers had intended for soft-drinks and snacks for their party. So his first impulse was to take some of the money and buy some Cokes and cookies. But then he heard a little voice say, "Don't rob them of the joy of giving."
A farewell party was held on Friday night as planned. Instead of soft drinks, they drank water served in little cups. Instead of eating cookies, they had some dry crackers someone found in the camp kitchen. It didn't seem like much of a farewell celebration, but for some unknown reason that farewell party was the best one ever. Those campers experienced, perhaps for the first time, the joy of sacrificial giving. They had sacrificed their own self-interest and turned their attention on someone else. As Bob put it: "Those little cups of water and crumbly wafers constituted for us what communion was meant to be, not a solemn ritual, but a celebration of mutual self-giving." (1)
Today we join millions of our sisters and brothers in Christ as we come to the Lord's Table to celebrate World Communion Sunday. This day reminds us that we are one in Christ. Different languages are spoken, different traditions are observed, but our unity in Christ is unbroken.
But let's lay a foundation for our celebration of this sacred meal. Imagine with me for a moment that someone you know, perhaps a friend or co-worker, asks you a question. "I've noticed that you are a Christian," this friend says. "You go to church every week. What can you tell me about the Christian faith?" How would you answer such a question? Where would you start?
The author of the book of Hebrews starts at the very beginning, at the first book of the Bible, Genesis. And the things he says about who Christ is and who we are as his followers are quite remarkable.
FIRST OF ALL, HE SAYS THAT JESUS IS THE MIRROR IMAGE OF GOD. Let me read the exact words from the first chapter of Hebrews, the third verse: "He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word." That's pretty strong stuff to be said about a humble carpenter from Nazareth! It goes to prove you can't judge where a person will end up by where he or she began.
When Harry and Ada Mae had Sandra, their first child, they had to travel 200 miles to El Paso, Texas, for the delivery. When they brought Sandra home, it was to their ranch on the Arizona/New Mexico border, where life was not easy. Their little adobe home had no electricity or running water. There was no school within driving distance. With such limited resources, anyone would have thought that Sandra's future was not bright.
When Sandra was four, her mother began her education at home. She looked on it as a never-ending job, reading to Sandra hour after hour. Later, Sandra was sent to the best boarding schools that the family could afford because they wanted her to go on to college. Her father, Harry, had been frustrated in his ambition to attend Stanford University. His father had died just before he was to enter Stanford, and he had been forced to take over the ranch.
But Sandra did go to Stanford, then on to law school. Most of us know her as Sandra Day O'Connor ” the first woman Supreme Court justice in the United States. (2) You can't judge a person by their beginnings.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, it was not to affluent parents. He received no special education, though my guess is that Mary and Joseph were the most conscientious of parents. And yet He grew up to change the entire relationship between God and humanity. As the writers of the New Testament looked back on the effect Jesus had on everyone who met him, as they reflected on the nature of his resurrection and ascension, they knew that this was no ordinary man. Who was Jesus? He was the very Son of God. Or in the words of the writer of Hebrews, "He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being...."
That may be too much for some of us to digest. After all, we are a people who have relegated God to the sidelines and who have submerged ourselves in cultural relativity. The so-called "Jesus Seminar" alleges that only a portion of the teachings that are purported to be from Jesus are authentic. Isn't it a bit much, then, to ask us to take the leap of faith the writer of Hebrews demands ” to attribute to Jesus this quality of divinity? Perhaps so. But as C.S. Lewis pointed out a generation ago, we must make a decision: Either Jesus is who he says he is, or he is a liar and the writers of the New Testament are liars. Their testimony is that when you have seen Jesus you have seen God.
There is an interesting story about Queen Elizabeth II. One of the queen's favorite places is Sandringham, her palace in windswept Norfolk. She likes nothing better than to walk there in the wind and cold, with her dogs at her side. Sometimes she even goes into the village of Sandringham to shop. While she was shopping one day, a local resident remarked to her, "Why, you look just like the Queen." "How very reassuring," the Queen replied.
Don't you think it is reasonable that the queen should look like the queen? The testimony of those who knew Jesus best was that he looked just like God! Thus when Jesus wept over Jerusalem, we see the unbearable sorrow of God. When he held little children in his arms, we see the tenderness of God. When he condemned the self-righteous and those who exploit religion for their own gain, we see what is repulsive to God. "He is the reflection of God's glory," says the writer of Hebrews.
This is who Jesus is. But what he has done is just as important: HE TASTED DEATH. "But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone." (2:9) So here is the second thing we can say about Christ: He is the reflection of God, and he tasted death. For whom? For us.
By the time she was 30, Dr. Nancy Wexler was heading up the Commission for the Control of Huntington's Disease and Its Consequences. One of the commission's projects was an ambitious research project in several remote villages on Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. One extended family in that area has the highest incidence of Huntington's disease in the world. In 1981 Wexler's team began conducting psychological and neuropsychological assessments of indigenous villagers who had or were at risk for Huntington's. They began developing an extensive family tree, eventually tracing the disease to one woman who lived in the area in the early 1800s. Geneticists hoped that this work would lead them to a DNA marker that would eventually unveil the Huntington's gene itself.
But after a few of the Maracaibo villagers had donated blood and undergone skin biopsies, the project foundered. The villagers were very scared about giving blood because they'd never given it before. Here were these strangers from the U.S., taking their blood and walking off with it. Nothing could reassure the villagers. Even when Wexler explained that her own mother had died of Huntington's and that she was, in a way, one of them, they were very disbelieving. Finally a desperate research team nurse grabbed Wexler's arm and began pointing to a tiny mark, a biopsy scar left by the flap of skin she too had contributed for analysis, "See, see, see? She has the mark," the nurse said. "This just proves that she really is part of the family." The villagers began to cooperate. (3)
The testimony of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ, who was the very reflection of God's glory, emptied himself and became part of the human family. Not only that, he tasted death on our behalf. He who could have called ten thousand angels to his rescue, drank the cup of submission to the purpose for which he was sent. We have heard that message so often that we are desensitized, I fear, to its radical and life-changing import. It is a claim so outrageous that it leaves no room for evasion. Either it is true or it is not. And here is where I am leading this morning. If it is true, what does it say about us? Think about it: what does this say about us? IT SAYS WE MATTER. We matter! Regardless of our gender, or our race, or our economic status, or our age, or our accomplishments or lack thereof; if Christ left his royal throne to give his life in our behalf, then we matter! Here is how the writer of Hebrews puts it, "For this reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters." We are Christ's own brothers and sisters.
Last summer the newspapers carried a quirky story datelined Camp Pendleton, California. A nurse in a clinic there called for patient Robert McDonald. Two men got up and started to follow her through the military hospital. Then the younger man noticed the mix-up and held back. But his curiosity was piqued, and Cpl. Robert C. McDonald, Jr., 21, asked his doctor to contact the other man's doctor. That doctor confirmed that the two McDonalds' middle initials also were the same. That led to a reunion between a father and his son after 16 years apart.
The McDonald family had dissolved in divorce in 1977. The son, who hadn't seen his mother since he was 12, was raised by foster parents. His father said that after a stint in jail, judges repeatedly denied him visitation with his son and two daughters. The son, a maintenance repair technician at El Toro Air Station, was at the hospital at nearby Camp Pendleton for a checkup on a knee injury. His father, who served in the Navy and the Air Force, has lived on the northern San Diego County base for about 10 years, working as a security guard. He woke Tuesday with the flu and went to the hospital for treatment. A few weeks ago was his son's birthday. The elder McDonald said he cried and couldn't sleep, thinking about his long-lost boy turning 21. "If I had known that this day was coming," he said, "I would have been pretty happy instead." (4)
A father and son united. This is the story of what happened at the cross. Because of what Christ did for us we were re-united with God. We were brought into a new relationship with our Creator. In the words of our text, Jesus now calls us his brothers and sisters. The celebration of the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper, or the Holy Communion, as it is called in the various traditions, is a family celebration. We are God's family. As you take the bread and the cup this day, think of Christ and who he is ” he is the very reflection of God's glory. Think of what he's done ” he tasted death in our behalf. Then think of who we are ” we are brothers and sisters of Jesus ” his own family.
1. Bob Morely, AEROBICS FOR THE SPIRIT, (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990), p. 111.
2. LEADERSHIP . . . WITH A HUMAN TOUCH, pp. 19-21.
3. Lauren Picker, "All in the Family," AMERICAN HEALTH, March 1994, p. 22.
4. LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, June 3, 1993, p. A3.