Communion Message
What Do You Long For?
August 28, 2005
Pastor Leighton Sheley

Some are told that what we really long for is money or sex or power or fame, but everything that this world has to offer, the satisfaction, is really only temporary. That's because mankind was designed to gain satisfaction from relationship with our Creator, and it's sin that causes separation in our relationship with our Creator. But our Creator has provided a way whereby which that relationship may be restored through Christ Jesus.

In our times together week after week sometimes we read a portion from God's word, sometimes we have some teaching, sometimes a devotional, as I was preparing for our time together this week I came across this story I thought was apropos, especially in light of the message that you're going to hear from Pastor Mark in just a few minutes. It was written by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey.

It begins, John Karmegan came to me in Vellore, India, as a leprosy patient in an advanced state of the disease. Now we could do little for him surgically since both his feet and hands had already been damaged irreparably. We could, however, offer him a place to stay and employment in the New Life Center.
Because of one-sided facial paralysis John could not smile normally, and when he tried, the uneven distortion of his features would draw attention to his paralysis. People often responded with a gasp or a gesture of fear so he learned not to smile. Margaret, my wife, had stitched his eyelids partly closed to protect his sight. John grew more and more paranoid about what others thought of him.

He caused terrible problems socially, perhaps in reaction to his marred appearance. He expressed his anger at the world by acting the part of a troublemaker. And I remember many tense scenes in which we had to confront John with some evidence of stealing or dishonesty. He treated fellow patients cruelly and resisted all authority, going so far as to organize hunger strikes against us. And by almost everyone's reckoning he was beyond rehabilitation.

Perhaps John's very irredeemability attracted my mother to him, for she often latched on to the least desirable specimens of humanity. She took to John, spent time with him, and eventually led him into the Christian faith. He was baptized in a cement tank on the grounds of the leprosarium.

Conversion, however, did not temper John's anger against the world. He gained a few friends from among fellow patients, but a lifetime of rejection and mistreatment had permanently embittered him against all non-patients. One day, almost defiantly, he asked me what would happen if he visited the local church in Vellore.

I went to the leaders of the church and described John, assured them that despite obvious deformities he had entered a safe phase of the arrested disease and would not endanger the congregation. They agreed that he could visit. I then asked, can he take communion? Knowing that that church used a single common cup. They looked at each other and thought for a moment, and agreed that he could also take communion.

Shortly thereafter I took John to the church, which met in a plain white-washed brick building with a corrugated iron roof. It was a tense moment for him. Those of us on the outside can hardly imagine the trauma and paranoia inside a leprosy patient who attempts for the first time to enter that kind of setting. I stood with him at the back of the church. His paralyzed face showed no reaction, but a trembling gave away his inner turmoil. I prayed silently that no church member would show the slightest hint of rejection. As we enter during the singing of the first hymn, an Indian man towards the back half turned and saw us. We must have made an odd couple--a white person standing next to a leprosy patient with patches of his skin in garish disarray.

I held my breath, and then it happened. The man put down his hymnal, smiled broadly and patted the chair next to him, inviting John to come and join him. John could not have been more startled. Haltingly he made shuffling half steps to the row and took his seat, and I breathed a prayer of thanks.

That one incident proved to be a turning point in John's life. Years later, I visited Vellore and made a side trip to a factory that had been set up to employ disabled people. The manager wanted to show me a machine that produced tiny screws for typewriter parts. And as we walked through the noisy plant he shouted at me that he would like to introduce me to his prize employee. A man who had just won the parent corporations all-India prize for highest quality work.

As we arrived at his workstation the employee turned to greet us, and I saw the unmistakable crooked face of John Karmegan. He wiped the grease off his stumpy hand and grinned with the ugliest, the loveliest, most radiant smile I have ever seen. He held out for my inspection a palm full of the small precision screws that had won him the prize.

You know, a simple gesture of acceptance may not seem like much, but for John Karmegan it proved decisive. After a lifetime of being judged on his own physical image, he had finally been welcomed on the basis of another image, the image of Christ. God's Holy Spirit had prompted the body on earth to adopt a new member, and at last, John knew that he belonged...belonged to the body of Christ...belonged to Christ.

Ephesians 5:30 says that we are all members of Christ's body. The elements that we hold remind us of the extent to which Christ went to make it possible for us to belong to the body of Christ - to belong to Christ. When we think about how perfect God is and how complete He is, truly we must stand before a holy God in our unholy condition as attractive as an advanced leprosy patient might be to us, because God is perfect and God is holy in every regard and we are imperfect and we are unholy in every regard.

But God has not rejected us. God has chosen us. God has redeemed our souls from destruction. God has adopted us as His very own children. God is going to give us new bodies that are incorruptible some day, and He's preparing a place that is beyond the ability of the human language to describe in all of its beauty and splendor that we can share together. Truly God is great and greatly to be served.

The Scriptures say at times like this we should examine our self, and I'd like to invite you, if you are physically capable, to join with me now as we kneel in the presence of our Lord and Savior.

Lord we are so thankful that we can come to You, our heavenly Father. Your word says it we confess our sin You are faithful and just and will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Lord we thank you that we can come, we can ask, we can receive Your forgiveness and Your cleansing; all made possible because of Calvary's cross.

Lord, the elements that we now partake of, we partake of in remembrance of the You. Let us partake of the bread, and also the cup.

Thank you Lord...for selecting people from every tribe, tongue, and people, and nation to be part of Your eternal family - in Jesus' name we pray and all God's people said amen.