Happy New Year! We are less than 60 hours into a new year and a new decade, and I’ve been wondering about this: when we say “Happy New Year,” are we stating a fact or making a wish? Perhaps it’s a little of both. In either case, the bringing of this year has been pretty much like all the other new years that I’ve witnessed. We spend a lot of time thinking about the past year and dreaming about the future year. We spend a lot of time reflecting on our past failures and resolving to do better in the coming 365 days. And perhaps more than anything else, we breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve made it this far and we eagerly look ahead to something better and brighter. And so here’s a question: why – in the midst of all this talk about the new – do you and I focus our first worship service of the year on something very, very old?

Everything new in life is actually born from out of something very old. Without the old, the new has no place to begin, no context, no substance from which to be born. Without the new, the old simply dies away and becomes irrelevant, out of touch with where we are today. It is part of the genius of Christian faith that we have traditions and rituals and sacraments that are very old, but which also can be translated into every present age. Our faith speaks to us of the fundamental things that never change, and it speaks to us from out of the distant past. And yet, our faith also speaks to us in the present moment in ways that answer our current need. This is very much so with the sacrament that we celebrate today: the Lord’s Supper.

Briefly, let us look back to the origin of this ancient tradition so that we can understand what it said then. About 1300 years before Christ, or 3300 years ago, a man named Moses heard a call from God that beckoned him to confront the Pharaoh of Egypt and demand that he release the Hebrew slaves that had been held there for 400 years. Pharaoh had to be convinced, and the final argument from God through Moses occurred when God’s Spirit visited the households of the Egyptians and took their firstborn sons. God’s Spirit passed over the Hebrew households, sparing their sons. The marker that identified the Hebrew homes was the blood of a lamb. The Passover and the Exodus of the Hebrew slaves that followed is the central event that established the Jewish people as the nation of Israel and the People of God. It is our Jewish cousins’ most important holy day.

Jesus, being an observant and devout Jew, celebrated the Passover. Mark tells us that while Jesus was celebrating the Passover meals with his disciples, he did a very curious thing. Jesus took a piece of the unleavened bread which reminded the Jews that they had to leave Egypt in a hurry and did not have time to wait for the bread to rise, and he blessed the bread, then broke it, and then said, “This bread is my body.” Jesus also took a cup of wine, the third of four cups shared in the ceremonial meal, and after they had shared a sip from the cup together, he said, “This wine is my blood.” What Jesus said made no sense to the men sitting with him, until the next day, when he was crucified, and then three days later, when he was resurrected.

For Moses and the people of Israel, the celebration and remembering and understanding of the Passover became a central element of their worship lives, because God commanded it. God commanded it – and the Jews celebrate it to this day – because the event itself speaks of the fundamental truths about God and us. For the disciples who sat with Jesus, the celebration and remembering and understanding of the Supper became a central element of their worship lives, because Jesus commanded it. Jesus commanded it – and Christians like you and I celebrate it to this day – because the event itself speaks of the fundamental truths about God and us. What are those truths?

The first truth is spoken to us not with words but with symbols. The Jewish act of Passover remembers a violent event within the context of a simple meal. The Christian act of Communion does the same. And in that way something very deeply true about our lives is pictured: from out of the pain, the suffering, the questioning, even the violence of our lives, God invites us to join him at a place of peace, of comfort, of fellowship. We come in from the hard and cold reality of the world and join Jesus at the table where all is warm and welcoming and good.

The next truth is spoken to us from out of sacrifice and death. That may not sound so comforting, until you realize what the sacrifice and death were all about. In Passover the lamb was killed and its blood smeared on the doorpost so that God could protect and save his people. In the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, his blood was spilled so that all people could be forgiven of their sin and saved from a life without God. In other words, the truth of communion is about forgiveness and renewal. We begin each new year and even each new day with a sense that we have made mistakes, that we have not lived up to our potential, that we could have done better. We have been slaves to our own sin, or slaves to the sin of others. The truth is, however, that God forgives us and then God renews us so that we can meet a new day or a new year with hope and joy and the knowledge that, yes, we can do better. The media, as always, has given us extensive lists of the famous people who in 2009 made a mess of their lives. Our own failures and missteps are generally not paraded in front of the world, but we know what they are. But the truth spoken in the ancient meal is this: that God forgives and renews. God built a new nation for the Jews from out of the Passover event. God built a new nation for all people – the family of the church – from out of the Cross event. God takes the broken past and creates a blessed future, as he forgives and renews.

The next truth is spoken to us from out of fellowship and love. When God appeared on the scene and told Moses that together they were going to rescue the Hebrew slaves, among other things it meant that God was going to get very involved with these particular people. God loved them, and God was going to be with them. When Jesus appeared on the scene and enlisted the disciples, and then lived with them, and then died for them, among other things it meant that he was very involved with people whom he loved. In both instances, the truth expressed is that God offers us his friendship. In the ancient culture of the Jews from which both Moses and Jesus came, to sit at a meal together – any meal, or a special meal – whether the Passover meal or the Lord’s Supper – was a very big thing. Casual acquaintances did not eat together. Only family and close friends. Late last year there was brief media frenzy about a flashy couple who bluffed their way into a dinner at the White House. We all know the type: so starved for attention that they’ll do anything to convince you how wonderful they are. What do you think it would take to get an invitation to sit at the dinner table with God? The truth spoken in this ancient meal is that God has already issued the invitation and set the table and is waiting for you to come. Because God considers you close family, his best friend.

The next truth is revealed as we think about the nature of what happened when God intervened in world events to rescue Hebrew slaves and when God interrupted the lives of a handful of disciples to proclaim his sacrificial love and his welcome into a whole new reality. Not only do we find forgiveness and renewal here. Not only do we find acceptance and friendship with God here. We also hear this word: a word about God’s example for how we are to live and God’s mission for what we are to do. In the Christian Passover of the death and resurrection of Jesus we see that God does whatever it takes to come and be with us, to restore and renew us, to heal and feed and empower us for the living of our lives. What God has done for us, then, we are called to do for others. Jesus invites us to his table so that we can eat of the sacrifice of his body and blood, which nourishes us with his forgiveness and his friendship. But we are never meant to sit at the table forever! I am one of those who always resolves to eat less and exercise more in the new year. And I know that the first exercise I have to do more of is pushing away from the table! You and I come to this table and then we leave it, to go and set our own tables out in the world. At the tables we set, we offer our forgiveness and acceptance and renewal for others. At the tables we set, we extend our friendship and fellowship and love for others. At the tables we set, we become coworkers with the very Spirit of God himself, the Spirit of the Risen Christ, not just making a new nation called Israel, not just making a new spiritual nation called the Church, but making a whole new world, the new creation that is God’s Kingdom here on earth.

The ancient sacrament that you and I come to now at the beginning of this fresh, new year, is something that the church has sometimes called a “means of grace.” It is a means by which you and I receive and experience again the grace of God. A modern way to think of it might go like this. For those of us who use computers, every day, and probably many times a day, we download information into our personal computers that we need in order to be informed and to do our work. Some of you may read or hear this very sermon as you download it from our website. Well, every day, you and I need to download God’s grace. We need his forgiveness, his friendship, and his mission for our lives. We download God’s grace as we receive and take God himself, given in body and blood, in bread and wine. So come…take…eat…drink.

Amen.