During the past week, I’m sure that all of us have followed the return of the POWs held in Viet Nam.  And I’m sure we have been stirred with emotions as the picture has been presented of the great controversy swirling about their release, about how they got home, and all of the things involved in this return.  It seems to me, however, there is one thing that was not included in the news.  That is the celebration on the part of family and friends as the POWs returned.  I’m sure there have been great emotions and rejoicing and dreaming of a future.  What about celebration?  What did they celebrate?  Life? Escape from prision?  Return home? 

          This is what celebration is.  It is a commemoration of an event that brings happiness.  You remember how the father celebrated with the return of the Prodigal.  They celebrated with joy--a feast and gifts and dancing and making merry.  We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, marriages, victories, achievements, graduations.  We celebrate the end of suffering.  We celebrate the coming of any joyous occasion.  Why?  Because the goal of life is joy, not sorrow.  Whenever it comes, whatever pains have been suffered, whatever price has been paid, celebration is not for these things.  Rather it is that life has come.

          Among the final words spoken by Jesus in the Upper Room in connection with the institution of the sacrament are these, “These things I have spoken to you that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full.”   When Jesus paints the picture of the kingdom of God and of life in that kingdom, he chooses a marriage feast.  He chooses celebration.  He chooses discovery of something that makes life richer and fuller.

          When the catechism was written the first question was, “What is the chief end of man?”  The chief end of man is that he may glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  When Jesus instituted the sacrament, there was a sorrow, fear and gloom--all kinds of depressing emotion.  Jesus recognized this.  He said, “I tell you this is true, you will weep and lament like mourners at a funeral, and you will be in distress but your distress will turn to joy.”

          One of the things that took me a long time to discover about the sacrament was that this is not the time for long faces.  This is not the time to pretend sorrow.  The communion service is a time to remember Christ’s death, to renew our faith in the power of the crucifixion, and the elements--the bread and the wine, the symbols of a broken body and the shed blood.  But had not Christ returned in the resurrection, it would be nothing more than the sacrifice of one who cared about people.  It would have been like any other death.

          The celebration of the communion is the celebration of Christ alive and present at the table, which makes it a joyful celebration.  Can you imagine the POWs sitting with their families, and with them having the sadness they must have felt in the sorrow and anxiety and fear while they were still prisoners in Hanoi.

          The resurrection changed the atmosphere at the communion, for we do not observe it to remember the death as the end.  We celebrate it to remember his presence with us.  He was set free from the prison of the grave, from the authority of sin, to return, for the fulfillment of his promise in which he said, “I will come again to you.”

          The only saddness at a communion service which would have any ring of truth is that we would come sad because of what we have done to others, because of our sin against Christ, omission and commission.  Who has not felt in some hour when another suffers, and the memory of what he did or failed to do floods him, almost overwhelms him.  Almost anyone of us can identify with that.

          When death comes, the greatest pain expressed is members of the family regretting what they had not done, or what they might have done.  There may be sorrow for what we did or what we did not do to other people, or to Christ.

          But when we come, remember how we failed Christ, how we hurt him by hurting other people, by neglecting others, by the sins which crucified him.  That sin could be understood.  When we come we do not come under the burden of that sin.

          One of the essential parts of the communion is to confess our sins, to hold them up in the light of the cross, to see what they are.  Paul said, “Let a man examine himself.”  We surely ought to do that, and we ought to be sorry for our sins.  However, why do we come?  Those sins are wiped out.  He has forgiven us.  They are not ours any longer.  He has taken care of them.

          Have you ever had a difficult experience with somebody and there was alienation, and you felt the pain of it and you could not sleep.  And every waking moment your mind, whatever it was on would suddenly go to whatever had happened.  And one day you had the courage and grace to go and say, “I’m sorry, I know I was wrong.”  And this person says, “No it is partly my fault,” and there was reconciliation and the whole weight of that world was changed.  And now there is the release and the joy and the feeling that everthing is right again.  That’s what happens today.

          That’s why we are here--to get rid of that, to come and face Christ and say, “We have sinned.  We have sinned against our brother, we have sinned in what we haven’t done, we haven’t lived up to our commitment.” And he forgives.  That’s the happy moment.  The happiest moment you’ll know in life is when you have borne the burden, and then you have found forgiveness and you’ve had the grace to say, “I’m sorry.”

          That’s what happens at communion.  Christ is here, we confess our sins and he forgives them.  A new life begins again.  A new world opens up. And we celebrate life in Christ.

          The way Jesus puts it, only women can understand.  Those who have children. But all of us are identifying enough and having an understanding and an imagination enough to know what he meant.  He said, “You shall be in distress but your distress shall turn to joy.”  Like he says when a woman is having a baby.  She is in distress because her hour is come.  But as soon as the baby is born, she does not remember the pain anymore in her joy that a child has been born.

          Whatever sorrow there was in the cross, whatever distress, however much we have been committed to remember it, and we certainly must never forget--surely the POWs will never forget what they went through--the mood has changed.  The pain is erased.  The emotions are reversed in the resurrection to remember the pain no more, but to remember that he is alive.

          And now, let us come to this place.  Let us move beyond the pain and sorrow of our sins forgiven.  Let us know the celebration of life that we have in Christ.

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