The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Remember
This week, seven and a half months after our move to this house, I finally put the last of the pictures up on our walls. I’ve always found that the pictures are the first to be packed in the old house and the last to be unpacked in the new house. This move was no different in that respect from other moves we have made. As I carefully placed each family picture, I remembered the people they represented – Dan’s folks and my folks long since gone home to be with the Lord, sisters, brothers, our children then and now, their spouses, and their children.
Pictures are not the only things that have caused me to remember the past during the packing and unpacking involved in our move. Last week I gave our daughter a colorful hanging with her name, birthdate, birth weight, and other information that someone had cross-stitched and framed as a baby gift when Hannah was a newborn. A few weeks ago I gave Andrew a rabbit he had carved for me out of wood when he was a small boy with his first knife. We still use many things, especially kitchen tools, that our parents used when we were children. What memories bound forth when I use the old grapefruit knife or metal tongs that my mother used in preparing meals for her young family.
Quite often we need physical items to bring to memory events that are easily forgotten in the busy-ness of our daily lives. That is partially why Jesus gave us the sacramental ceremony of the Breaking-of-bread, called “Communion” by most people. In 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 Paul writes:
“For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ After the same manner He also took the cup when He had supped, saying, ‘This cup is the new testament in my blood. This do ye, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.’”
The first mention of this is in Luke 22:17-20 which clarifies the symbolism of the cup as representing “the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (vs. 20).
The form of this remembrance celebration is clearly stated. Since the meal in which this was demonstrated was Passover, the bread would have been unleavened, a symbol of the sinless nature of Christ as the ultimate sacrifice for sin. Thanks was given for the bread. It was then broken and shared out. The Luke version has the bread and cup reversed, but in 1 Corinthians they are expressed as first the bread, then the cup.
The cup would have been a much weaker wine, fruit of the vine, than we have today and which would have typically been offered with meals. During my childhood, each Sunday we celebrated the Breaking-of-bread in which one cup with red wine was passed from person to person, the alcohol content deemed strong enough to kill germs. Now churches generally use grape juice in tiny plastic disposable cups for individual consumption. Again, during the last supper, thanks was given for the cup and it was passed for each person to partake from it.
Paul gives us additional instructions on the remembrance feast as set out in 1 Corinthians 11:27-34:
“Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come.”
In this passage we are instructed to make sure we are worthy to participate in the corporate remembrance of the Lord’s sacrifice for sin. Confession of any sin that might hinder our walk with Christ is necessary; to come to Communion with any unconfessed sin, indifference, an unforgiving heart, or anything defiling our holiness in Him, is to dishonor Christ and His work on the cross for us. Failure to self-examine and deal with sin and impure motives before Communion invites discipline from God for the Christian and condemnation for the unbeliever who tries to engage in the Communion exercise unworthily. The ordinance of Breaking-of-bread, then, is also a place of purification for Christ’s Church. We need to wait for each other and share together, at the same time, in the remembrance of Communion. It is not a full meal and it is not for our physical satisfaction. It is for our spiritual benefit, individually and corporately, and it is for the glory of God that we frequently share in the Breaking-of-bread.
Participation in the celebration of Breaking-of-bread with the symbolic bread and cup achieves multiple goals. Through it we remember Christ’s redemptive act on the cross, we share in Christ’s spiritual presence with the Church, we fellowship with other believers in the shared commemoration of the cross, we worship together in holiness, we proclaim salvation solely based in Christ, and we look forward to His coming again (“…till He come” 1 Cor. 11:26).
