Taking Charge: a communion meditation

At some point early on in our marriage, I crossed a well-understood line in my wife’s family. Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have even considered approaching this line, but desperate times call for desperate measures!

To properly set the scene, I need to point out that our three oldest children were young at the time, and our youngest wasn’t born yet. So, taking them anywhere was no small undertaking, and embarking on an overnight trip was an ENORMOUS ordeal! The sheer amount of stuff–luggage, sleeping bags, play pen, diapers, wipes, extra clothing, and stroller all made any out-of-town excursion exhausting. Also, during major holidays, to lighten the burden on the host family, we often prepared some sort of contribution to the feast, which involved buying extra groceries, the requisite baking or chopping, and careful packaging for the trip, which added tremendously to the overall effort.

So it was that we loaded all the necessary cargo plus five human beings into our trusty minivan and drove two hours to celebrate Thanksgiving with my wife’s family. Several cassette tapes of children’s songs and at least one urgent potty stop later, we arrived both frazzled from the trip and happy to be out of such close proximity to each other. Oh yeah, in addition to everything mentioned so far, we were also getting hungry.

The kids ran off to play with their numerous cousins, while my wife and I happily settled into adult conversations. Everything was going as planned until it became obvious that there was some problem in the kitchen. And by problem, I mean that there was an argument over how to prepare the turkey.

This is where that well-understood line I mentioned earlier becomes critically important. You see, in my beautiful wife’s family, cooking was and pretty much still is the domain of the women. It was not only frowned upon for men to venture into the kitchen, but it was also commonly understood that the menfolk were not welcome in that part of the house. The job of men is to hunt and kill, stoke the fire, fix what is broken, and hammer down anything that has come loose. We don’t mend or sew or wash, and we certainly don’t cook!

The problem was I was hungry! If you polled my in-laws, I’m certain you’d receive slightly different accounts of what transpired next. But my own version of the story goes something like this: I kicked open the door to the kitchen and maniacally grabbed an apron. A hush fell over the estrogen-filled room as astonished faces slowly backed away from the male intruder with a crazed expression. It’s quite possible I spoke in tongues as I barked orders for an array of spices and vegetables while assembling the main course. A plastic turkey roasting bag miraculously appeared from somewhere, and 2-3 hours later the golden-brown bird emerged from the oven—a complete success.

Over the years since this incident, I’m happy to report I’ve made slow and steady inroads with my in-laws. I am now allowed into the kitchen and even permitted to help if I ask politely.

Thanks to my own family’s obsession with food, I was definitely prepared to take charge of dinner on that fateful day, but I never actually planned to do so. Hunger is a powerful motivator!

Biblical scholars can point to hundreds of different Old Testament prophecies preparing the world for the coming Messiah, and it is clear that God’s plan to take charge of our salvation was officially ushered in by Jesus’ birth, which we commemorate each year during the Christmas season.

And Jesus sealed the deal on God’s salvation plan when He established the new covenant at the Last Supper and then died and rose for our sins three days later.

From the very beginning, God took charge of planning and preparing the grand feast of salvation for the world. And today, the table is set–it’s time to eat!

During today’s communion time, won’t you make the individual choice to accept the seat He’s saving for you?

[[the bread]]

At the Last Supper, as Jesus reclined with his Disciples at the table…he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

[[the juice]]

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

[[prayer]]

Let us pray…

• Father God, we’ve all lived through moments when it was time to take charge of the situation–with family, at work, during a disaster.
• But no amount of planning or preparation by mere human beings could ever overcome sin and death in this world.
• You had to step in, and thankfully, after several thousand years of careful planning and preparation, You did just that!
• During this Christmas season, help us to always be thankful for Your holy intervention.

Know Better : a communion meditation

Back before we could drive, my best friend Rob and I used to work on all sorts of electrical and mechanical items. You see, both of our fathers were engineers with extensive collections of cool tools and great track records of impressive projects, so we dreamed of someday taking our rightful places in that same pantheon of success.

Never mind the fact that we often left the items we set out to fix in worse condition than when we started. The point is, we were learning and growing so that we’d be ready when our time finally arrived.

Fast forward slightly to when we were both able to drive and a whole new category of victims, I mean opportunities, became subject to our technological prowess: automobiles. Specifically, our parents’ automobiles!

So it was with this newfound excitement that one day I received permission to drive my mother’s car to pick-up Rob so we could run some mundane errands. Now, this car wasn’t especially noteworthy—it wasn’t a hot rod by any means, the radio was standard GM fare, and the top didn’t drop. But it got Mom from place to place, and it worked reliably. Until…

Rob’s family lived just down the street from mine, so it didn’t take long for me to roll-up in his driveway. But in that short drive I definitely noticed that the car was sputtering somewhat. An experienced driver would have realized that the engine hadn’t completely warmed up yet. But Rob and I came to the conclusion that the carburetor was obviously in need of tweaking.

Now, for those of you who are less mechanically inclined, “tweaking” is a complicated technical term that would take a long time to explain. Suffice it to say that professional mechanics would dumb this term down to “adjustment.”

“Pop the hood, Greins,” Rob barked confidently as he headed into the garage, quickly returning with a screwdriver, the common tool used to perform said “tweaking.”

Knowing that he was fetching the tool, I raised the hood and removed the air cleaner cover.

“Jump in and give it some gas when I tell you,” he said, leaning over the engine compartment.

What happened next lives on as folklore in our continuing friendship. From the driver’s seat peeking under the crescent formed by the raised hood, I could just see the large flame that shot upward out of the throat of the carburetor when I followed his instructions. Dropping the screwdriver in the driveway, Rob staggered backwards slapping repeatedly at his face. He wasn’t really injured in any permanent way, but let’s just say it’s a good thing his older sister was a hairdresser.

Like my dear friend and I thought we knew better than a professional mechanic, how many times do we think that we know better than God?

Looking at Matthew 16:21-23, we see that this same issue occurred among Jesus’ circle of friends:

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”

God’s salvation plan culminated with Christ’s death and resurrection, and we remember that short span of Jesus’ earthly ministry each week when we celebrate communion. Let us never presume to stand in the way of God’s plan—even though our plans may seem better to us.

Let us pray…