Communion Part 1

Just yesterday, Sunday August 2nd, I saw just how habitual and ritualistic the church I go to while in Pittsburgh is. An elder got up to do the communion thing, they don't do meditations, just recite the "On the night be was betrayed he took bread, broke it..." passage. Which can be fine, if done properly. Well it's not at this church. It was easy to tell that the elder had his mind elsewhere while taking communion that day because he ended up in a prayer talking about tithing, and asking God to let others give as we do. Or something like that. I got busy thinking about what I was going to say when I jumped up there to take it over because this guy didn't care.

So this week I want to look at communion. We'll probably just do 3, but there's a lot that can be said about communion.

But today I want to look at what it is.

Communion was instituted by Christ, on the night of the Passover feast. What does that mean?

In the OT, the Israelites escaped Egypt after God had rained down 10 plagues on the country, all of which didn't effect the Jews. The last plague was the killing of the first born. But if the Jews did a certain action, God passed over their house and didn't kill their first born (hence the name "Passover"). Every year Jews would gather together, and still do, to celebrate God passing over their house, allowing their first born children to live, and delivering them from slavery. They do this once a year.

This is the feast where Jesus took bread and broke it, passing it around to his disciples, and did the same with the cup (but he didn't break it apart else juice would get everywhere).

So every week then, when we take communion, we are celebrating God's wrath passing over us, onto a first born, and us coming out of slavery.

Or...

Ever week, we celebrate God unleashing his wrath because of our sin, onto his own firstborn son. And because he unleashed his wrath onto his son, we have a chance to escape the slavery of sin.

Which brings us to the place of, "For as often as you eat of this bread and drink of the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

Wednesday we will expand on this idea more, what it means to proclaim the death of Christ every Sunday. But for today, all I want to leave you with is this:

When we take communion we celebrate the freedom from sin that God has graciously given us by passing over us and pouring his wrath out upon his own firstborn. This is part of what we are to reflect on as we take communion regularly.