Come, Share the Lord

[pullquote_center width=”80%”]No one is a stranger here, everyone belongs.
Finding our forgiveness here, we in turn forgive all wrongs.
We are now the family of which the Lord is head,
Though unseen He meets us here
In the breaking of the bread.
Come take the bread, come drink the wine, come share the Lord.[/pullquote_center]

I hope you’ll indulge me a little this week. This Grace Note explores a sacred song text that, though not a hymn in the traditional sense, is written by one of contemporary hymnody’s leading voices, Bryan Jeffrey Leech. A more strophic version is included in our new Celebrating Grace Hymnal (#459).

This text explores the mystery of the communion table. There is a uniting force enervating our common meal, a force that unites, reconciles, and unifies. In sharing common elements, the yield of our common earth, we draw closer to the source of our being. Here at the table, we belong. Here at the table, “they” belong—no matter who they are—because the feast we share is provided by a Host who welcomes, beckons, urges all to join His family. In coming to Jesus’ table, we sit beside the losers, the broken, the rejected—because these are the beloved of our Beloved.

Don’t we all need one place where we know we won’t ever be strangers? Thanks be to God, it is here at the table.