Messy Salvation

If one saw my Facebook status Sunday evening or  happened to be present in worship at Tuckston United Methodist Church on Sunday morning then one is well aware of what happened.  For those who are not aware of what took place, I share my Facebook report with you: "It finally happened today in my thirty-second year of pastoral ministry. After many close calls and near misses, I spilled the communion cup and I don't mean a small spill; I mean Exxon Valdez--B.P. oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico spill. It was one of those things I knew would happen some day---today some day came."

Yes, I spilled the communion chalice on Sunday.  It was a mess.  Grape juice oozed and flowed everywhere.  What amazed me was the reaction of many of the Tuckston parishioners after the service.  Quite a number of them commented on the fact that it was a very meaningful communion service. I thought at first they were simply being kind to their bumbling pastor.  I thought what they really meant was the communion service was "memorable" (which it certainly was) rather than "meaningful."  Then one parishioner commenting on the accident said, "It reminded me of Christ's blood being spilled for me."

Perhaps it was appropriate that I actually made a mess because the cross was messy. To say that the cross was messy is to utter one of the greatest understatements one can imagine. As our communion ritual and the scriptures remind us,  when we celebrate communion the cup is indicative of what Jesus called "the new covenant in my blood."  The broken bread and the cup are to invoke in us the remembrance of the broken body and the shed blood of the cross. The cross was an instrument of torture, humiliation and execution.  The idea that  our savior suffered on the cross was according to St. Paul  was "foolishness" to some and a "stumbling block" for others.   All of that is messy.

Could it be that we have made a mistake in our Protestant traditions by removing the body of Christ from the cross?  The symbolism of the risen Christ no longer being present on the cross is certainly appealing; however, in removing the body of Christ from the cross I can't help but wonder if we have somehow softened the message of the cross and cleaned up the mess of a broken body and shed blood.

In our modern culture  it seems that we have sanitized the cross.  We have coated crosses in brass, molded crosses out of gold, designed them in ornamental ways and even made the cross into jewelry.  There is nothing wrong with any of this.  Indeed the cross is special.  However, we don't worship the cross.  We worship the one who died there and his death was messy, bloody and brutal.

The truth is that the grace of God can sometimes by messy.    Love can be messy.  The cross is the point where human sin comes in contact with the love of God and that gets very messy even brutal.  Yet, out of the messiness of the cross comes our salvation.

Hopefully next month I will not spill the communion cup.  If I continue to do so I'm sure the Tuckston altar guild would resort to putting the communion juice in a child's sippy cup.  That said, I am grateful for Sunday's mess.  In that mess I was reminded and I pray we all are reminded of the lengths that God will go to tell us how much we are loved.