Sermon text: Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
As Solomon would say, here we are, celebrating the Lord’s Supper... again. But what profit is there in it? Every week we do the same thing, and don’t seem to be ahead spiritually speaking. Sometimes we are doing worse than the week before. The bread rises, the bread goes down our throats, next week it’s right back again and nothing has changed. Our stomachs are not satisfied with eating. The Church has been celebrating this sacrament for 2000 years, and what is there to show for it?
Remember that under the sun, this ritual is just that – an empty, futile ritual. But God has promised to break through, to break in, to feed, nurture and sustain us with His Son. And because God keeps His promises, there is GREAT profit in our baptism, in Joshua’s baptism this morning. There is great profit in this meal. For God has ordained it to be so, no matter how vaporous it appears to us, under the sun. God comes to us, and gives us Himself on the cross, reveals Himself here at the table. Who can find satisfaction apart from God? God has to give it.
And when He does, there is nothing better for us than to eat and drink and enjoy the temporary fruit of our labor. Jesus has seen the labor of his soul, the people He bought with His blood. And He is satisfied. We cannot accomplish so grand an eternal redemption like that, and yet our labor is like His, when we work in faith, looking forward to the joy set before us and provided by God, only by His grace, through no merit or labor of our own.
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