In our sermon series from 2 Peter 1, we are considering two kinds of love: philadelphia brotherly love and agape love. The first is the natural affection toward brothers and sisters with whom we hold a common faith. The second is the unnatural demonstration of goodwill toward all, even toward those who are our enemies.
The table symbolizes brotherly love. The table is central to fellowship. It is associated with feasting and celebration, with joy and gladness, with affection, emotional attachment and ties between family members, with the glow of friendship. When people gather around the table, they are like family.
The cross symbolizes agape love. The cross represents separation instead of fellowship, fasting instead of feasting, pain and suffering instead of joy and gladness, affliction instead of affection, the cold harshness of enmity instead of the warm glow of friendship. The cross speaks of solitude and loneliness, and those who gather there often do so to mock and scorn.
As we saw on Sunday, even the love of the table can be difficult, but clearly the love of the cross is the harder love. We readily come when Jesus calls us to fellowship at His Table. We are reluctant when He calls us to fellowship with His Cross. But it is through the power of the love of the Cross that enemies are made brothers. Indeed, we cannot have the fellowship of the Table without the fellowship of the Cross.
The Table of the Lord is an amazing place where former enemies of God and of each other (that is, you and I) come together as one family. We come together to partake of the bitterness of Christ’s death–His body and blood–and find there the sweetness of His grace.
May we leave the Table each week with the sweetness of His grace still on our lips. May we go into the world bearing His Cross. May our lives be so adorned by agape love in this world, that we are ready to sacrifice and even die for those who hate and misuse us. Such love–the love of the Cross–is painful and lonely, which is why we regularly need the love of the Table–the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, as well, the encouragement of brothers and sisters–to urge us onward.
So then, come, taste and see that the Lord is good. The Table at Christ Church does not belong to me or to the Anglicans, but to the Lord. Therefore, all who love our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in sincerity and have been baptized in His Name, are invited to come to His Table.
Hope to see you there on Sunday.