The Communion of the Saints and the Communion of the Stains.
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Midweek Meditation
This past Sunday we observed All Saints Sunday. We remembered the lives of nine church members who passed away in the past year, as well as two former staff members. It also happened to be the occasion for our first celebration of Holy Communion on a Sunday in the sanctuary with our new church flooring.
One of the signs it was time for new flooring in the sanctuary was all the stains on the red carpet from the grape juice dripping from the chalices during the serving of Communion. Those stains that freckled the front reminded us how many times our church family communed with Christ and with one another in that sacred space. However, the stains are hard to clean, so the decision was made to go with hard wood flooring in the front, which would be much easier to clean.
After worship on Sunday, I checked the new hard wood to see if there might be some juice stains. Would you know, there were! And even though those stains can now be cleaned up with the simple wipe of a wet cloth, my mind got to thinking about the relationship between the communion of the saints and the communion of the stains.
All of us, like that old red carpet, eventually come to bear the stains that come with life. Some of the stains in our lives we may have caused ourselves; some of the stains may have been caused by others. But however we got them, there they are, and they can be difficult, if not impossible, to remove from the fabric of our lives. And so we are, all of us, together members of the communion of stains.
And yet, when we put our trust in Christ’s saving grace and become a follower of Jesus, we come to be counted among the communion of saints, those set apart or “sanctified” as holy and precious to God through Christ.
And whenever we share together in the sacrament of Holy Communion, we remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross that forgives us of our sin and washes those stains clean. In the words of one of our worship songs, we remember
Jesus paid it all
All to him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow
Thanks be to God for the indescribable, incalculable grace that, through Christ, transfers our membership from the communion of the stains to the communion of the saints.
