On the last night of camp at Halls Gap, we had a church-type service which included communion. The communion talk given on this night, painted communion in a whole new way for me.
The humanity of Jesus is often lost within Christianity & religion. Communion is a very good example of this. What do you do when you're about to leave your home base on any sort-of long journey? Alot of people hold going-away parties, so that they can say good-bye to those closest to them. At the very least people will catch-up with all thier closest relatives and friends. Jesus was no different. It is Jesus last night before being arrested and eventually crucified, and he knows this. So what is he doing with his last night of ministry? How did Jesus spend his last free hours on earth? He wasn't out healing the terminally ill, forgiving & talking to prostitutes or condemming the actions of religious leaders, as he'd become famous for. Nor was he delivering that one last 'this is how I want you to live' message. No, he spent it having a meal with his closest friends. He even states in Luke 22
"I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."Or to put it in the way I understand it "I've been looking foward to eating this meal tonight guys, it's the last one I'm getting untill I've been raised from the dead." (Which was still 3 days away) So Jesus is about to have his last meal with his disciples, a meal which has extra significance, because it is the Passover, an important celebratory meal in the Jewish tradition. He then takes bread, a staple food of his time, and still a staple food now & breaks it. He similarly takes wine, a common drink then, and a common drink now & gives it to his closest friends as is recorded in 1st Corinthians 11:
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.So Jesus is telling his closest friends that whenever you eat bread & drink wine, remember him! Not once a week, or once a month. But every time you eat bread or drink wine, which in those days, would've been almost every meal. Jesus intended communion to be a normal thing for his followers to do. Eating a meal, remembering Christ. A normal daily occourance. When Jesus instituted what we now call communion, I think he meant more that a semi-formalised ritual undertaken weekly or monthly.
Anyone understand what I'm trying to get out of my head into words?
