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When visiting another church one time, a thought occurred to me as I waited in my pew for communion to be served. It was during the Advent season, and the service had warmed us with words of hope and light. It was also the first Sunday of the month, which in that church meant communion Sunday. As the service shifted from Advent to communion, it struck me that, you know, we do this fairly often. Celebrate communion, that is. Once a month. We celebrate Christmas and Easter only once a year. Advent and Lent are each several weeks long, but again, these seasons occur only once a year.

Now I know that every Sunday is to be considered a "little Easter," and in that sense we do celebrate the Resurrection more often than once a year. Which is why there are actually 46 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter. We think of Lent as forty days long, though, don't we? Why is it actually 46? Because the six Sundays during Lent don't count -- they're "little Easters," and not part of the Lenten season, at least not for counting purposes. But apart from the 52 Easters, little and big, every year, our communion Sundays are our most frequent special occasions. Weekly in some churches, monthly in others, less often, but still several times a year, in others.

Which got me to think about why this is the case -- why do we celebrate communion so often? Especially when it doesn't seem particularly relevant to the worship themes of the season, like at Advent, when we're focused on the coming of Christ into the world, on the very beginning of what we know is to come?

It must have something to do with the momentousness of the moment, the moment when Jesus and the disciples paused to eat the Passover meal even as the authorities were closing in upon him, even as his freedom and eventually his life were about to be taken away. There must be something about that moment, on the verge of something so terribly and totally disappointing, that makes our remembrance of it in the celebration of communion an especially appropriate and meaningful moment in which to connect with God, and for God to connect with us.

Gathered in that large upper room, after they had begun to eat, Jesus revealed that he knew he was about to be betrayed. "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me." "Surely, not I?" the disciples all replied. "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me."

Run, Jesus, run! Why, oh why, didn't he get away and hide? Instead, with the mightiest powers in the world closing in, he continued on with the meal, taking a loaf and then a cup, and enacting the highly symbolic ritual that we reenact so often ourselves. With time slipping away, on the verge of being arrested, and beaten, and bound, and tried, and crucified.

A momentous moment, when the future of his ministry was in such grave doubt. Surely it would have been his worst fears that were realized. Not the kind of occasion we tend to "celebrate" in our lives.

When you think about it, don't we usually commemorate and celebrate much more positive events? All of our major holidays are of a basically positive nature: Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, New Year, the Fourth of July. The two holidays that bookend the summer are a bit different, Memorial Day and Labor Day, but even if these commemorate some difficult times and struggles the basic tone is one of appreciation and respect.

I really think that the Lord's Supper is in a category all by itself -- a remembrance of a time when such a significant and positive development, the coming of Christ into the world, was about to be dealt a tragic blow. And Jesus knew it.

I think that the reason that we connect so deeply and powerfully with the Lord's Supper is that we simply don't have other events or ceremonies in our lives with such a rich mix of emotion, and with such a range of spiritual notes, from the sense of impending disaster to the anticipation of triumph in the resurrection.

Life is most difficult, isn't it, when we can sense that something very important to us is facing a powerful, seemingly insurmountable threat? Whether this threat is a disease, or mounting difficulties at work or at school or in our relationships, or personal struggles to come to terms with something that threatens to control us, can't we feel awfully alone in such times? Our family and friends are there for us at the high points -- graduations, births and birthdays, weddings, other celebrations of our achievements. But who is there when we are facing something we fear is so powerful that we cannot stop it?

There is so little in our lives that provides a place and a space for us when we're facing difficult situations. Of course, we can talk with friends and loved ones and pastors. We must. But beyond that, in terms of the occasions that larger groups and communities will be observing, there's nothing like communion in terms of a place and a space to connect with God around our deepest fears and worries. Whatever we're on the verge of.

I'm aware that these thoughts may not match up with how you tend to view communion. I understand that. That's really my point -- this hasn't been how I have tended to view communion, either. I think I've been missing something. Mainly, communion has been a time for appreciation, of getting in touch with how grateful I am for what Jesus Christ was willing to do on my behalf. Not that this is wrong -- just that I can appreciate this even more deeply in the context of this realization that what Christ did, he did when the tide was turning against him, and his time in ministry was up.

Does this mean that communion should be a glum experience? We're remembering that everything was just about to turn for the worse when Jesus instituted the Last Supper. No, to reach that conclusion would be, I think, to miss the point that I'm trying to make. The point is that even when Jesus' ministry was on the verge of disaster, and let's not mince words about that, he was able to strike a positive note when despair could very easily have been the order of the day.

That's it: that communion is a time for us to strike a positive note, to reconnect with God, when despair could very easily be the order of the day. When we know we're on the verge of something really, really scary, and it's all we can do not to give up. That's when we need a place to go, for support and love and strength. Communion is that place, and we are blessed to have it in our lives.

I know of a college student who came from a fine Christian family, and a good community, and who had, if not an affluent background, certainly every advantage that one should hope for while growing up and going through school. He attended a good college, made plenty of friends, and enjoyed his studies, and dreamed of one day becoming a television sports reporter. He also had a problem with alcohol. In his social group, binge drinking was common, but even in his group he had a greater tendency than most to drink to excess, and to get too drunk too often.

Maybe it would have been easier if he hadn't come from such a good family. Because when he thought about the problems he was having with alcohol, he hated himself for it. He knew how disappointed his parents would be in him, if they knew how much he was drinking. And although he was managing to stay in school, and to keep his career goals on track, he had a bothersome sense that his ability to do so was slipping away, and it might all collapse in disaster. He resolved to quit drinking, but he just couldn't stick with it. And every time he'd get drunk again, he only hated himself more. He felt he had so deeply disappointed his parents, if they only knew, and even his desperate attempts to quit had failed. It was all about to come crashing down -- this was the only way he could see it. He could not see a ray of hope in the situation. He had disappointed his parents, and completely disappointed himself. There didn't seem to be any way forward, toward hope, out of his problems. The only thing that he could see coming was disaster. So he took his life.

That's how it can seem sometimes, when we're on the verge of something that we know better than we know anything else we don't want to happen, like there's no way around what we fear will happen. This is why communion is so important for us. Communion is there for us at such times, offering the real commitment of our God to be with us and love us and bring us into new life no matter what it is we're facing. I know it may not be easy. More importantly, Jesus knows what this is like. Which brings us to an aspect of the significance of Jesus' fully human nature, sharing our lot. He, too, has been there. None of us can say we face greater obstacles than he. Yet, even in that moment of impending danger, with his liberty about to be taken away, and his life certainly threatened, he paused to tell us, that this bread is his body, and this wine is his blood. He's here, alive, and with us in every situation, comforting and supporting and giving us hope, in every hour.