Thank you once again for your participation in our survey this morning.  I have only three more questions to ask you:  What is one of the best meals you have ever eaten?  What is one of your most memorable meals? What is your most meaningful meal?

I like these questions.  We have friends visiting this weekend from Michigan.  We went to college together, attended seminary together, and lived two doors down in the mobile home park in Crowley, Texas (inappropriately named Swiss Chalet Estates).  Whenever we get together we remember meals that we have shared – cookouts, pizza parlors, vacations, and stuff like that.  One night we were eating outside at Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth.  A sudden shower hit us and our table of ten began to run inside.  Donald and I grabbed our plates and went under the table.  There we were huddled under a table, laughing as we ate our food, and then started eating our friends’ food.  There were other meals – memorable meals.

I wonder if the disciples ever got together just to visit after the Resurrection.  There are accounts of at least some of them fishing together and hanging out in the house together.  If they did get together, I imagine that they would reflect on some of the meals that they shared.  Perhaps one of them would start out, “Do you remember that time we were at that wedding banquet and they ran out of wine?”  Another one would pipe up and say, “What about the time that we were in the middle of nowhere and Jesus fed 5,000 with just those two fish and five small loaves of bread?”  They would kind of laugh and always come to the most meaningful of all the meals – their last Passover together.  It must have been quite a meal.  All four Gospel writers included it in their accounts.  John spends over 25% of his book on that one night.  Perhaps it was somewhere around the blessing of the third of four cups of wine, served during Passover, that Jesus looked into the cup and began to teach them about the relationship between the vine, the branch and the fruit.  Hear now the Word of the Lord:

⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This is the word of God for the people of God.  In this passage John reminded his readers of the communion they had with Christ, with the Father, and with each other.

We have been telling the stories of the windows these last few weeks.  Our focus has been on the west side windows.  On this side we have heard the stories of the resurrection, the ascension, and the crucifixion.  Today we come to the Communion Window.  This window was donated in memory of William Marion Rascoe, class of 1942 who died in battle in 1944.  It was donated by his mother.  As we look at this window we see some obvious symbols and some subtle symbols.  The three letters at the top of the window look like IHS and some read into this, “In His service”.  Actually the letters predate the English language as a Christian symbol and are the first three letters in Jesus’ name in Greek – Iota, Eta, Sigma. There are two hands in this window, one is raised up as a blessing from the Father and the other is outstretched as if holding the righteous in his hand.  On the raised hand there are three fingers extended to symbolize the Trinity and two fingers raised together reminding us that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.  There are the chalice of communion, the grapes that remind us of our Lord’s union with the church, and the grape leaves symbolizing the love between Jesus and his members.

It’s a beautiful window that prompts us to reflect on the most memorable meal in human history, a meal that is not yet over.  Look! There’s still some left.

It’s just a little bread and juice.  Most of the other stuff is already gone.  Remember the Passover was a lavish meal with people coming together for hours to remember and relive the exodus from Egypt.  There was bread and wine, but there was also meat and vegetables and dessert.  Here we have a little bread and juice, but if the Lord could make a feast of five loaves and two fish, just think what he can do with this before us.

Earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus referred to himself as the Bread of Life, telling his listeners that they would abide with him as they ate his flesh and drank his blood.  It seemed like crazy talk until he instituted the Lord’s Supper, taking the bread of affliction and telling them that this was his body; then taking the cup of redemption and telling them that this was his blood.  Now, it’s as if we are taking some of Jesus into us and receiving his presence through these few fragments left from that memorable supper.

As we look into this cup we see our communion with Christ, we remember that he is the vine, we are the branches, and our purpose is to bear fruit, and not just a little fruit.  Verse five indicates that we are to bear much fruit.  Herschel Hobbs wrote in his commentary, “Failure to abide in him would result in a wasted life.” 

As we look into this cup we see our communion with one another.  R.V.G. Tasker wrote in his commentary that the followers of Jesus are “not a collection of individuals, but a corporate society.”  In this cup, you can’t tell one grape from another, the fruit of one branch from that of another.

As we look into this cup we see our communion with the Father who was glorified by the obedient ministry of the Son and is glorified by us when we bear fruit.  Jesus said, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit.”  This is our cup. 

As we look into this cup we see our communion with the joy that Jesus intends for our lives.  It was the joy that he knew by fulfilling his purpose and the joy we can know.  Jesus said, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

I would guess that I have eaten over 53,000 meals in my life.  Some have been better than others, some have been more memorable than others, and some have been more meaningful than others.  But no meal, not in my life or yours, is more meaningful than the one that is before you today.  Look! There’s still a little left of the most memorable meal in human history, and you are invited to the Table.  Amen.