The Lord’s Supper—See, Touch, and Taste
The Lord’s Supper: See, Touch, and Taste
Communion Sunday — November 1, 2026
Kingman Church of the Nazarene
Gathering and Purpose
Pastor Toni opened by noting that the congregation was gathering for Communion on the first Sunday of November, as the season of Thanksgiving began. She invited the church to reflect on the Lord’s Supper and the meaning of its elements.
She described Kingman Church of the Nazarene’s vision as a church family that loves, lives, and leads: loving Jesus and others, living in obedience to Jesus, and leading others toward Him.
The church’s practice is grounded in Acts 2:42, which describes believers devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Pastor Toni connected this early-church pattern to the congregation’s gathering and Communion.
Before the sermon, she prayed that the Holy Spirit would search, fill, and guide the congregation, and that they would be filled with the love of Jesus as they prepared to come to the Lord’s table.
The Bread and the Cup
The sermon’s primary passage was Matthew 26:26–29. In the setting of the Passover meal, shortly before His crucifixion, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” He then gave them the cup, identifying it as His covenant blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus also looked ahead to the day when He would drink with them in His Father’s kingdom.
Pastor Toni asked why Jesus instructed His followers to remember Him through bread and the cup rather than simply telling them to remember Him. She proposed that the elements are purposeful: they teach important truths about Communion and about what it means to follow Jesus. She organized the sermon around three actions:
Together, these actions make the remembrance of Jesus concrete and personal.
1. See: Recognizing the Meaning Behind the Elements
Pastor Toni described Jesus as a teacher who often used vivid, everyday images to help people understand the kingdom of God. The Gospels include illustrations involving farmers, fishermen, shepherds and sheep, lamps, coins, pearls, and other familiar things. In Communion, Jesus used the ordinary elements of bread and wine.
Jesus held up the bread and the cup and gave them a new meaning. The disciples would have known those foods as familiar parts of a meal, but Jesus connected them to His body and blood and to what He was about to do.
The physical elements did not change, Pastor Toni explained; their meaning changed. Jesus gave His disciples a visible reminder of His coming death, and He instructed them to continue the practice so that future believers could remember Him as well.
Pastor Toni asked the congregation to consider what they see when they look at the Communion table. They could see only a small cracker and a little juice, or they could recognize what those elements represent: Jesus’ suffering and death for them.
She invited listeners to picture the suffering associated with the crucifixion—the crown of thorns, scourging, nails, and spear—and to understand the cup as a reminder of Jesus’ blood poured out. The visual elements point to the cost of forgiveness and the love Jesus showed in giving Himself.
Pastor Toni also noted that Scripture sometimes uses “seeing” to describe spiritual understanding. Jesus spoke of people who had eyes but did not truly see or ears but did not truly hear: they could perceive physically while remaining unreceptive to God’s truth. Communion therefore invites believers to look beyond the ordinary appearance of the elements and attend to the spiritual reality they signify.
Application: As the congregation approached Communion, Pastor Toni encouraged each person to look beyond the small portion of bread and juice and remember Jesus’ body given and blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins.
2. Touch: Remembering Jesus’ Real Humanity
Communion is not only something believers see; they also hold the elements. Pastor Toni emphasized that Jesus did not merely display the bread and cup but handed them to His disciples and told them to take them.
Touch, she said, can make an experience more personal than sight alone. She compared in-person contact with connecting through platforms such as Zoom or FaceTime: technology can help people communicate across distance, but it is not the same as being physically present with someone, greeting them, or offering a hug.
Holding the bread and cup reminds believers of the Incarnation: Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world in a real human body, with real flesh and blood. He experienced physical life, including hunger, thirst, and pain.
Pastor Toni cited 1 John 1:1–3, where the writer speaks of what was heard, seen, looked upon, and touched concerning “the Word of Life.” The passage presents the life of Jesus as something the witnesses encountered bodily and proclaimed to others, with the purpose that others might share fellowship with them and with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Pastor Toni explained that the word translated “fellowship” is related to the word used for communion. Through Jesus, believers have fellowship with God and with one another. Jesus’ body was not an apparition or illusion: He came in a physical body and experienced human sensation.
Therefore, when believers hold the Communion elements, they are reminded that the Son of God came in the flesh and died in the flesh so that people could have true fellowship with God and with one another.
Application: The physical act of holding the bread and cup can help believers remember that the Christian faith is rooted in Jesus’ real incarnation and real death—not merely an abstract idea. It also points to the shared fellowship of the church.
3. Taste: Personally Receiving Christ and Sharing in Him
Jesus’ words, “Take and eat,” bring Communion beyond seeing and touching. Pastor Toni said that tasting illustrates personal reception: it is not enough merely to know that Christ came in the flesh or died on the cross; believers are called to receive Jesus into their lives.
In John 6:53–58, Jesus speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, saying that those who do so have eternal life and remain in Him, just as He remains in them. He also identifies Himself as the bread that came down from heaven, contrasting this bread with the manna eaten by the ancestors who later died.
Pastor Toni taught that bread does not nourish someone simply by sitting on a table; it must be eaten. In the same way, Jesus—the Bread of Life—gave Himself so that people might live through Him. The Communion elements remind believers that they belong to Jesus and are united with Him.
Romans 6:5 teaches that those united with Christ in a death like His will also be united with Him in a resurrection like His. Pastor Toni connected the bread and cup with this union: Communion recalls believers’ participation in Jesus’ death and their hope of sharing in His resurrection.
Communion also expresses the unity of the church. In 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, Paul asks whether the cup is a participation in Christ’s blood and whether the bread is a participation in Christ’s body. Because there is one loaf, the many who share it are one body. Pastor Toni noted that “participation” carries the sense of fellowship or communion: believers share in Jesus together and are joined to one another through Him.
Application: Receiving Communion is a reminder that faith is personal, but not individualistic. Believers receive Christ and belong to Him, while also sharing fellowship with other Christians as members of one body.
An Invitation to Experience God’s Goodness
Pastor Toni referred to the biblical image of the table as a place of personal encounter and cited Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” She explained this as an invitation to experience God’s goodness personally.
She invited anyone who had not trusted Jesus as Savior to confess their sins to God and trust in Jesus’ death on the cross for forgiveness. She encouraged them to “taste and see” God’s goodness and to join with other believers at the Communion table.
Before the elements were distributed, she invited the congregation to bring anything that was keeping them from fully coming to the table or being present with God. She encouraged them to give it to God and lay it on the altar.
In prayer, she asked God to reveal anything unconfessed in the congregation’s hearts so that they might come into His presence prepared to receive the Lord’s Supper.
The Heidelberg Catechism and the Assurance of Communion
After a worship song centered on the invitation to come to the table, Pastor Toni introduced Question 75 of the Heidelberg Catechism, a teaching document from the Reformation era. The question asks how the Lord’s Supper reminds and assures believers that they share in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross and in all His gifts.
The answer emphasizes two assurances:
Pastor Toni then invited the congregation to eat the bread together. Afterward, she encouraged them to see what God had done through Christ, take hold of the salvation God offers through Jesus, and taste and see the goodness of God.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Pastor Toni thanked God for being good and gracious and for the opportunity to remember that Jesus left the glory of heaven to come into a dark and hurting world and bring salvation. She also gave thanks for the promise that a place in eternity is being prepared for those who love Jesus.
Testimony and Closing Worship
Before the service concluded, Pastor Toni invited a congregant named Byron to share a testimony about God’s goodness.
Byron described arriving at church feeling broken and having difficulty walking. He credited God with enabling him to walk again and spoke of what he regarded as a miracle involving bone growth around metal in his back. Byron presented his recovery as evidence of God’s goodness and urged others to experience that goodness.
Byron also shared that Debra had recently returned to the church and prayed for his finances. He described a positive financial turnaround within a week and gave thanks to God.
The congregation responded with praise and prayer, including a request to lay hands on Byron. The service then closed with worship focused on God’s goodness and faithfulness, followed by a prayer asking God to guide and bless the congregation as they departed.
Central Message
The Lord’s Supper uses ordinary, physical elements to help believers remember and receive the truth of the gospel:
Through Communion, the congregation remembers Jesus’ death, celebrates the salvation He gives, and looks forward to resurrection life and the promised fellowship of God’s kingdom.
Communion Sunday — November 1, 2026
Kingman Church of the Nazarene
Gathering and Purpose
Pastor Toni opened by noting that the congregation was gathering for Communion on the first Sunday of November, as the season of Thanksgiving began. She invited the church to reflect on the Lord’s Supper and the meaning of its elements.
She described Kingman Church of the Nazarene’s vision as a church family that loves, lives, and leads: loving Jesus and others, living in obedience to Jesus, and leading others toward Him.
The church’s practice is grounded in Acts 2:42, which describes believers devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Pastor Toni connected this early-church pattern to the congregation’s gathering and Communion.
Before the sermon, she prayed that the Holy Spirit would search, fill, and guide the congregation, and that they would be filled with the love of Jesus as they prepared to come to the Lord’s table.
The Bread and the Cup
The sermon’s primary passage was Matthew 26:26–29. In the setting of the Passover meal, shortly before His crucifixion, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” He then gave them the cup, identifying it as His covenant blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus also looked ahead to the day when He would drink with them in His Father’s kingdom.
Pastor Toni asked why Jesus instructed His followers to remember Him through bread and the cup rather than simply telling them to remember Him. She proposed that the elements are purposeful: they teach important truths about Communion and about what it means to follow Jesus. She organized the sermon around three actions:
- See
- Touch
- Taste
Together, these actions make the remembrance of Jesus concrete and personal.
1. See: Recognizing the Meaning Behind the Elements
Pastor Toni described Jesus as a teacher who often used vivid, everyday images to help people understand the kingdom of God. The Gospels include illustrations involving farmers, fishermen, shepherds and sheep, lamps, coins, pearls, and other familiar things. In Communion, Jesus used the ordinary elements of bread and wine.
Jesus held up the bread and the cup and gave them a new meaning. The disciples would have known those foods as familiar parts of a meal, but Jesus connected them to His body and blood and to what He was about to do.
The physical elements did not change, Pastor Toni explained; their meaning changed. Jesus gave His disciples a visible reminder of His coming death, and He instructed them to continue the practice so that future believers could remember Him as well.
Pastor Toni asked the congregation to consider what they see when they look at the Communion table. They could see only a small cracker and a little juice, or they could recognize what those elements represent: Jesus’ suffering and death for them.
She invited listeners to picture the suffering associated with the crucifixion—the crown of thorns, scourging, nails, and spear—and to understand the cup as a reminder of Jesus’ blood poured out. The visual elements point to the cost of forgiveness and the love Jesus showed in giving Himself.
Pastor Toni also noted that Scripture sometimes uses “seeing” to describe spiritual understanding. Jesus spoke of people who had eyes but did not truly see or ears but did not truly hear: they could perceive physically while remaining unreceptive to God’s truth. Communion therefore invites believers to look beyond the ordinary appearance of the elements and attend to the spiritual reality they signify.
Application: As the congregation approached Communion, Pastor Toni encouraged each person to look beyond the small portion of bread and juice and remember Jesus’ body given and blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins.
2. Touch: Remembering Jesus’ Real Humanity
Communion is not only something believers see; they also hold the elements. Pastor Toni emphasized that Jesus did not merely display the bread and cup but handed them to His disciples and told them to take them.
Touch, she said, can make an experience more personal than sight alone. She compared in-person contact with connecting through platforms such as Zoom or FaceTime: technology can help people communicate across distance, but it is not the same as being physically present with someone, greeting them, or offering a hug.
Holding the bread and cup reminds believers of the Incarnation: Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world in a real human body, with real flesh and blood. He experienced physical life, including hunger, thirst, and pain.
Pastor Toni cited 1 John 1:1–3, where the writer speaks of what was heard, seen, looked upon, and touched concerning “the Word of Life.” The passage presents the life of Jesus as something the witnesses encountered bodily and proclaimed to others, with the purpose that others might share fellowship with them and with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Pastor Toni explained that the word translated “fellowship” is related to the word used for communion. Through Jesus, believers have fellowship with God and with one another. Jesus’ body was not an apparition or illusion: He came in a physical body and experienced human sensation.
Therefore, when believers hold the Communion elements, they are reminded that the Son of God came in the flesh and died in the flesh so that people could have true fellowship with God and with one another.
Application: The physical act of holding the bread and cup can help believers remember that the Christian faith is rooted in Jesus’ real incarnation and real death—not merely an abstract idea. It also points to the shared fellowship of the church.
3. Taste: Personally Receiving Christ and Sharing in Him
Jesus’ words, “Take and eat,” bring Communion beyond seeing and touching. Pastor Toni said that tasting illustrates personal reception: it is not enough merely to know that Christ came in the flesh or died on the cross; believers are called to receive Jesus into their lives.
In John 6:53–58, Jesus speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, saying that those who do so have eternal life and remain in Him, just as He remains in them. He also identifies Himself as the bread that came down from heaven, contrasting this bread with the manna eaten by the ancestors who later died.
Pastor Toni taught that bread does not nourish someone simply by sitting on a table; it must be eaten. In the same way, Jesus—the Bread of Life—gave Himself so that people might live through Him. The Communion elements remind believers that they belong to Jesus and are united with Him.
Romans 6:5 teaches that those united with Christ in a death like His will also be united with Him in a resurrection like His. Pastor Toni connected the bread and cup with this union: Communion recalls believers’ participation in Jesus’ death and their hope of sharing in His resurrection.
Communion also expresses the unity of the church. In 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, Paul asks whether the cup is a participation in Christ’s blood and whether the bread is a participation in Christ’s body. Because there is one loaf, the many who share it are one body. Pastor Toni noted that “participation” carries the sense of fellowship or communion: believers share in Jesus together and are joined to one another through Him.
Application: Receiving Communion is a reminder that faith is personal, but not individualistic. Believers receive Christ and belong to Him, while also sharing fellowship with other Christians as members of one body.
An Invitation to Experience God’s Goodness
Pastor Toni referred to the biblical image of the table as a place of personal encounter and cited Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” She explained this as an invitation to experience God’s goodness personally.
She invited anyone who had not trusted Jesus as Savior to confess their sins to God and trust in Jesus’ death on the cross for forgiveness. She encouraged them to “taste and see” God’s goodness and to join with other believers at the Communion table.
Before the elements were distributed, she invited the congregation to bring anything that was keeping them from fully coming to the table or being present with God. She encouraged them to give it to God and lay it on the altar.
In prayer, she asked God to reveal anything unconfessed in the congregation’s hearts so that they might come into His presence prepared to receive the Lord’s Supper.
The Heidelberg Catechism and the Assurance of Communion
After a worship song centered on the invitation to come to the table, Pastor Toni introduced Question 75 of the Heidelberg Catechism, a teaching document from the Reformation era. The question asks how the Lord’s Supper reminds and assures believers that they share in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross and in all His gifts.
The answer emphasizes two assurances:
- The visible signs point to Christ’s sacrifice. As surely as believers see the bread broken and the cup given to them, Christ’s body was offered and broken, and His blood was poured out on the cross for them.
- Receiving the elements points to Christ’s spiritual nourishment. As surely as believers receive the bread and cup from the server and taste them, Christ nourishes and refreshes their souls for eternal life through His crucified body and poured-out blood.
Pastor Toni then invited the congregation to eat the bread together. Afterward, she encouraged them to see what God had done through Christ, take hold of the salvation God offers through Jesus, and taste and see the goodness of God.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Pastor Toni thanked God for being good and gracious and for the opportunity to remember that Jesus left the glory of heaven to come into a dark and hurting world and bring salvation. She also gave thanks for the promise that a place in eternity is being prepared for those who love Jesus.
Testimony and Closing Worship
Before the service concluded, Pastor Toni invited a congregant named Byron to share a testimony about God’s goodness.
Byron described arriving at church feeling broken and having difficulty walking. He credited God with enabling him to walk again and spoke of what he regarded as a miracle involving bone growth around metal in his back. Byron presented his recovery as evidence of God’s goodness and urged others to experience that goodness.
Byron also shared that Debra had recently returned to the church and prayed for his finances. He described a positive financial turnaround within a week and gave thanks to God.
The congregation responded with praise and prayer, including a request to lay hands on Byron. The service then closed with worship focused on God’s goodness and faithfulness, followed by a prayer asking God to guide and bless the congregation as they departed.
Central Message
The Lord’s Supper uses ordinary, physical elements to help believers remember and receive the truth of the gospel:
- See the bread and cup as signs of Jesus’ body and blood, given for forgiveness.
- Touch the elements and remember that Jesus truly came in a human body, making fellowship with God possible.
- Taste the elements as a reminder to receive Christ personally, live in union with Him, and share in fellowship with His church.
Through Communion, the congregation remembers Jesus’ death, celebrates the salvation He gives, and looks forward to resurrection life and the promised fellowship of God’s kingdom.
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