Communion - but with a twist

(context - taking care of Dad at home after a number of strokes disabled him and a few months after my stepmom was killed in a car accident)

Mother’s birthday - would have been 90

Last night my mind was pondering the impression I had about holding communion with Dad. I don’t know how the idea came up but it was just there for a while.

Friday night we listened to the first two sermons by Frank Phillips on Righteousness by Faith that I have had for some time but have not listened to yet. I was very impressed by some of the concepts and quotations and they were more easily understood in the light of many of the other things we have been learning lately. Though Dad dozed through some of it I was again a little surprised that he did not react to the strong presentation about the nature of Christ which only a year ago he would have reacted to violently.

Yesterday I strung a cable from the TV in the living room to his bedroom and set up another TV for him to watch. He was very appreciative which made me almost feel bad I had not done it much sooner. Dad is not one to express his feelings or needs very much but we are encouraging him to do so more and are trying to ensure a safe atmosphere for those expressions. Actually, I find myself in an almost continual state of low level amazement at what God has done and continues to do in Dad’s heart. It encourages me to let go of my own resistance and let mine be changed more rapidly as well.

This morning I ate a nice breakfast of delicious frozen fresh peaches heated and thickened with toast and almond butter and canned milk on the peaches - just like when I was a kid. As I was about to start the last bowl full I decided that Dad would enjoy the same thing. God had impressed me strongly this morning drawing from several sources that if I would deny myself like Peter denied Jesus then I could be free for Him to live His life in me. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to figure out for years. Keeping my selfishness “dead” for me is just as difficult as it was for Jesus to resist tapping into His natural perfect nature to resist sin. So I easily recognized that I would naturally rather eat the peaches myself than share them with Dad. But when I thought about it openly that way the selfishness became shamefully obvious and lost it’s appeal. So I threw what was left, toast and all, into the blender and gladly whizzed it up for Dad to enjoy - along with my soymilk and a bannana (which would not appeal to me anyway).

Dad suggested he might need to sit on the commode so I got him up. (Tania is away for the weekend so I’m doing everything alone, a great privilege in some ways) I decided to feed him while he sat there in case he might do more. Eating usually inspires that kind of activity for him. As we sat together for his breakfast we watched Dwight Nelson on 3ABN preach on the crucifixion in a sermon from last Easter. (I believe I was there for that sermon in person and maybe even running one of the cameras.) It was a deeply moving presentation full of pathos trying to convey at a deeper level the intensity of God’s passionate love for us demonstrated in what Jesus experienced there on the cross. I found myself drawn into the truth of the gospel and starting to weep with deeper appreciation for the reality of what really happened. As I turned to give Dad some of the last bites of breakfast I saw him wiping his eyes and blowing his nose. Suddenly it hit me again in fuller force, the reality of the deep, almost unbelievable change that God has and is doing in his heart. I also realized that we were experiencing something I have craved for several years now - mutual worship. You know, the real kind. The kind that is a spontaneous but also a simultaneous reaction of emotion and appreciation in the imminent presence of a God who we discover cares more passionately about us than we ever dared hope. I never dreamed I would worship this way alongside the one who was the very one who abused me the most and programmed me from a very early age with most of my false concepts of what God is like.

God is doing a new thing.

As I prepared to get Dad off the commode and clean him up and set him in his easychair it also begin to register in my mind — wash his feet? The real meaning of the original footwashing was not to establish another mindless routine, which it has become for most of us. It was to serve in gladness, performing the most humiliating function, at least in the eyes of the world, with a selfless spirit which sets one free from the humiliation itself. The privilege we have of doing the necessary things to clean up a person after a BM and keep their sense of self-worth in the process is the same thing, in essence, that Jesus did for each of those disciples.

As I was shaving Dad this morning Jesus whispered to me, “You are shaving Me”.

“I am?” I thought.

Yes, I take it on faith because Jesus said so in the Bible — and He’s always right.