Closing Thoughts Part One – Food for the Journey

Meditations in the Season of Lent 

April 7, 2022

Closing Thoughts

Part One – Food for the Journey

Today and tomorrow, I am closing my Meditations in the Season of Lent. On Monday, April 11, 2022, my meditations will be for Holy Week, the week before Easter. In closing my Lenten meditations, I have two takeaways from this Season of Lent.

In the last two years, Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, has become increasingly important in my spiritual life. Initially, it was like the proverb “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Two years ago, churches closed. Some churches offered ‘drive-through’ communion, and some even offered virtual communion. I have theological issues with these offerings of the sacrament and abstained from participating. As an ordained minister, I could have presided at a communion service for Cheryl and myself, but I did not sense the Lord’s calling for such a service. After abstaining for six months, we located a church that was open and offering a full Eucharistic service. The first time I knelt at their altar to receive the bread and cup, I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit and knew I had come home to the Lord’s Table. I recall reading that Saint Thomas Aquinas referred to the Sacrament as ‘food for the journey.” He was so right as our participation in the Sacrament sustained us through the pandemic. Since then, we have been blessed to receive the sacrament several times each month, and with each tasting of the bread and cup, I experience anew the presence of Jesus in my life as I look forward to his coming again in final victory. (More on his coming again tomorrow.)

For me, the actual tasting of the communion elements is the heart of the Eucharistic service. However, the entire liturgy is so very important to my spiritual growth and well-being. Two portions of the liturgy that I find most compelling are the confession and pardon, and the affirmation of faith. Our church uses the Nicene Creed, and I find my affirmation of the historic and traditional doctrines of the church comforting to my soul.

My Takeaway: The communion liturgy, and especially the Nicene (or Apostles’) Creed, is a summary of the Kerygma that I discussed on March 21, 2022. The Kerygma is summarized in the Great Thanksgiving of the United Methodist communion liturgy:

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Next week, as we consider the passion and death of Jesus, which includes his institution of The Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, I invite you to make time to prayerfully consider how your participation in this sacrament will help you worship God with reverence and awe.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.