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SUBJECT: Our Lord's Ascension

Our Lord's ascension to heaven occurred 40 days after He rose from the dead. During this time, He showed Himself alive to more than 500 people. We know nothing about most of these appearances. Ten, however, are recorded for us in the New Testament.

In reading of these appearances, I was struck by one feature: How often they occurred at meal time. Mark describes a dinner they shared on the Mount of Olives. Luke tells us that He broke bread with His friends in Emmaus and with the Apostles in Jerusalem. John recalls their breakfast on the beach. Clearly, our Lord wanted to eat with His disciples.

Why is this?

It is not because He needed to eat. Before the resurrection, He "hungered" like anyone else. But not in His state of glory. Nor is it because He needed their company. Once He had; not any more.

He ate with them because He desired their fellowship. And there is no better place to enjoy it than around a common table. Except it cafeterias (where we're herded like cattle), we eat with our family, our friends, and our loved ones. We invite them to our homes for dinner; we go to their homes for lunch; we meet at a restaurant; we go on picnics together; and so on. Eating together is a way of expressing--and building--fellowship.

Thus, our Lord ate with His people to remind them of how precious they were to Him; and how He wanted to be precious to them.

This is quite remarkable when you recall the circumstances that preceded the meals. All of the disciples forsook their Dearest Friend. One of them denied Him with cursing and swearing. None of them believed. Yet, here He is, inviting them to breakfast and coming to their place for dinner. Why?

John explains it for us: "Jesus, having loved His own who were in the world, loved them to the end".

Our Lord is now at God's Right Hand. Yet He still wants to meet us at the table; His table. On it He serves bread and wine. The bread stands for His "body which is broken for you". The wine represents His "blood...which is shed for many, for the remission of sins".

He invites us to this meal--"the Lord's Supper"--for the same reason He ate with the disciples of old: Because He wants our fellowship. With all of our faults and follies, He enjoys our company at His table. We enjoy His. May God bless this meal--make it into a "Holy Communion"--a fellowship supper between our Lord and His people. Amen.