John J. Rudin - Communion Meditation (August 5, 1962)
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| - | The most important single hour | 0:15 |
| in the Christian calendar | 0:18 | |
| is the hour of holy communion. | 0:22 | |
| This hour is a memorable one. | 0:26 | |
| This hour is an informative one. | 0:30 | |
| This is always the hour of Christian fellowship. | 0:34 | |
| This is the hour of commemoration. | 0:39 | |
| This is the hour of mystery. | 0:44 | |
| This is a memorable hour, yes, | 0:50 | |
| but not because it continues an ancient rite of the church, | 0:55 | |
| dating from days before the documents | 1:01 | |
| of the New Testament were written. | 1:04 | |
| Nor is it a memorable hour | 1:07 | |
| because of its solemnity and its pageantry. | 1:09 | |
| This is an informative hour, yes, | 1:16 | |
| but not because it offers an object lesson | 1:21 | |
| or serves as a powerful aid to learning. | 1:26 | |
| This is the hour of Christian fellowship, to be sure, | 1:32 | |
| but not because it calls congenial friends | 1:37 | |
| to assemble and in the context of sublimity | 1:43 | |
| and beauty to join themselves | 1:48 | |
| as additional links in a chain | 1:51 | |
| that began in an upper room | 1:55 | |
| in the first century, | 1:59 | |
| and is continued to this hour. | 2:01 | |
| This is the hour of commemoration, | 2:06 | |
| of remembrance, yes, | 2:09 | |
| but not the time for mere memorializing. | 2:13 | |
| This is not the hour | 2:18 | |
| of mere memorialism, | 2:20 | |
| safeguarding Christians from the evil | 2:24 | |
| of forgetting the founder of the faith. | 2:29 | |
| This is the hour of mystery, yes, | 2:34 | |
| but not because of the esoteric symbolism | 2:38 | |
| in the table which is spread, | 2:44 | |
| in the whiteness of the fair linen cloth, | 2:48 | |
| in the brokenness of the bread | 2:52 | |
| or in the redness of the wine. | 2:56 | |
| The hour of holy communion is truly all | 3:02 | |
| that I have suggested. | 3:06 | |
| A memorable hour, an informative hour, | 3:09 | |
| the hour of Christian fellowship, | 3:12 | |
| the hour of commemoration, | 3:14 | |
| the hour of mystery. | 3:16 | |
| All this but infinitely more. | 3:19 | |
| The meaning of it is inexhaustible, | 3:27 | |
| transcending every effort you or I may attempt | 3:31 | |
| to explain or interpret it. | 3:37 | |
| If your experience is as mine as been, | 3:42 | |
| after one has had long experience | 3:46 | |
| in attending holy sacrament, | 3:50 | |
| he finds his sense of wonder increasing. | 3:53 | |
| What it means or what it can mean, | 4:01 | |
| one can never fully understand or fully explain to another. | 4:06 | |
| But a partial answer to the question of meaning | 4:12 | |
| may be found in the words of our Lord, | 4:17 | |
| who gave his commandment saying, | 4:21 | |
| "This do | 4:26 | |
| in remembrance of me." | 4:30 | |
| These words among the earliest to be spoken | 4:36 | |
| by Christians of the first century | 4:39 | |
| have been passed on to peoples | 4:42 | |
| of all races and classes and conditions of men | 4:45 | |
| in all centuries. | 4:50 | |
| Today we listen to them again. | 4:52 | |
| As we have heard them every time | 4:58 | |
| we have attended holy communion, | 4:59 | |
| this do in remembrance of me. | 5:03 | |
| Let it not be forgotten, | 5:10 | |
| let it be said plainly, | 5:13 | |
| this is the hour of remembrance. | 5:16 | |
| But it is no bare memorial occasion. | 5:22 | |
| We have not come to Duke Chapel | 5:29 | |
| to pay tribute to a past event. | 5:33 | |
| We are not presently in this place of worship | 5:38 | |
| to eulogize the dead leader of a great cause. | 5:43 | |
| For us, and for all Christians of all time, | 5:51 | |
| holy communion is the central event | 5:58 | |
| of all days and years and centuries. | 6:03 | |
| Through this act, | 6:09 | |
| the past becomes present | 6:11 | |
| and both past and present | 6:14 | |
| are blended into all the tomorrows. | 6:17 | |
| We celebrate not as distant spectators | 6:21 | |
| of an isolated event | 6:26 | |
| but as participants with God | 6:29 | |
| in an act so significant | 6:33 | |
| that it is literally timeless. | 6:37 | |
| As often as worshipers eat of this bread | 6:44 | |
| and drink of this cup, | 6:51 | |
| they acknowledge the eternal presence of Christ. | 6:54 | |
| And participate with him in his sacrifice. | 7:03 | |
| This act of remembrance perpetuates | 7:10 | |
| both Bethlehem and Calvary | 7:15 | |
| as the late Bishop Gore once said. | 7:20 | |
| This act of remembrance expresses the whole | 7:24 | |
| of what our religion means. | 7:30 | |
| To paraphrase a sentence written | 7:34 | |
| by the distinguished Professor C.H. Dodd of Cambridge, | 7:36 | |
| through the mystery and the power of this sacrament, | 7:42 | |
| our Lord accomplishes his purpose | 7:49 | |
| to bring all men and women into union with himself | 7:52 | |
| and with the father. | 8:00 | |
| This is the true meaning | 8:03 | |
| of holy communion. | 8:07 | |
| This means that men pass beyond mere remembrance | 8:11 | |
| and enter into true communion. | 8:17 | |
| Just as bread and wine are united with men's body, | 8:23 | |
| so in the sacrament, the spirits of man | 8:30 | |
| and God are united. | 8:35 | |
| This makes the holy communion life's most significant event. | 8:39 | |
| It is not a dream, | 8:47 | |
| it is not the creation of some literary genius. | 8:49 | |
| It is not the invention of a religious specialist. | 8:52 | |
| It is not the product of any person's imagination. | 8:56 | |
| It is real, it is life's most significant event | 9:01 | |
| for individuals or groups or the church. | 9:08 | |
| All this must have been in the mind of Thomas à Kempis | 9:14 | |
| when he wrote the greatly beloved "Imitation of Christ," | 9:20 | |
| "As often as thou repeatest this mystery | 9:25 | |
| of holy communion, | 9:31 | |
| and receivest the spiritual nourishment, | 9:33 | |
| so often dost thou go over the work | 9:38 | |
| of thy redemption." | 9:45 | |
| Go over the work of thy redemption. | 9:48 | |
| What a striking thought. | 9:55 | |
| This is the meaning of holy communion. | 9:57 | |
| This tremendous personal encounter takes place | 10:00 | |
| at the table of our Lord. | 10:04 | |
| As often as we eat the bread and drink the cup, | 10:07 | |
| we participate in life's most significant event. | 10:10 | |
| We are united with God. | 10:16 | |
| We enter into God's purposes for man. | 10:19 | |
| My brethren, this is life's supreme truth. | 10:26 | |
| A truth that Christians must proclaim, | 10:33 | |
| believing at first in their own hearts | 10:37 | |
| and declaring it unhesitatingly, | 10:39 | |
| unapologetically in every era. | 10:42 | |
| Nothing really matters for me or for you save this. | 10:46 | |
| Ambition does not matter. | 10:53 | |
| Achievement and reward are relatively unimportant. | 10:56 | |
| The routines of life are inconsequential. | 11:03 | |
| The vicissitudes and the changes | 11:08 | |
| of fortune and circumstance are secondary. | 11:10 | |
| To be sure, there are concerns in our hearts | 11:15 | |
| that we cannot abandon | 11:18 | |
| but in the hour of holy communion, | 11:21 | |
| we look upon all of them | 11:24 | |
| in a new perspective. | 11:28 | |
| Sound and silence, light and darkness, | 11:31 | |
| movement and rest, | 11:39 | |
| thought and action, | 11:43 | |
| space and time, | 11:46 | |
| childhood and youth | 11:49 | |
| and old age. | 11:52 | |
| Yesterday and today and all the tomorrows. | 11:54 | |
| All these and all else take on new meanings | 11:59 | |
| and are to be seen in new relationships. | 12:03 | |
| All are to be understood | 12:07 | |
| in the context of man's relationship | 12:09 | |
| to his Redeemer God. | 12:12 | |
| Or in a word, in the hour of holy communion, | 12:16 | |
| we declare again | 12:23 | |
| when God and man are united, | 12:26 | |
| nothing else really matters. | 12:33 | |
| Amen. | 12:42 |