Communion

This might seem really silly, but everytime I go to church, I look in the bulletin to see if we are having communion. The reason is that I have never really enjoyed communion. I have gone to many different churches throughout my life and it seems everybody does it a different way. Some eat the bread when they get it, some hold it. Some drink all together some do it individually, some sing while it is being passed, some pray. I am scared everytime that I am going to do it wrong, so I check the bulletin to see if I need to be nervous or not. I say that to say this: this morning, I experienced communion the way I think Jesus intended it to be.

Here at school, I go to Clemson Presbyterian Church. This is different from what I grew up with, but I really love it. One main thing I love about it, is that they don't just DO religion. They focus on the person of Jesus and getting to know him more. Today's communion went something like this:

Jimmy Agan, our pastor, told us that we don't do communion because it is a neat idea or a cool tradition. We do it because that is what Jesus did on the night he was betrayed and he asked us to do it and remember Him when we do. He told us that the Lord's supper is not a memorial. Memorial's are for dead people. The Lord's supper is a celebration. God's work is finished, his wrath has been poured out, the day of the Lord has come and gone and Jesus bore the wrath of God because of sin. It is finished. Not only has his wrath been poured out, but he continues to change and use us. He wants us to take the bread and wine because he says the bread is his body that was broken and the wine is his blood that was poured out for us.

Jesus is as real as the bread is against our teeth and the wine against our lips. He is nourishment of our soul.

Dr. Agan explained that this feast was for those who have given Jesus full reign over their life. It is a celebration of what he did and what he is doing. He then explained that for those who have never traded their life for Jesus's, for those who are not seeking him, whether they are a believer or not, they should let the elements pass. He asked them to think about what it all means and why we are even here doing this church thing and for that matter, life. I like how he challenges even Christians by saying that if you are not seeking him, if he is not real to you in your life, let the elements pass you, re-evaluate and then come back to the table when you are ready to celebrate. Before he passed the bread, he said, "when you take the bread, please hold it until everyone has theirs and we will eat it together, because together we are the body of Christ." (Yes! Clear directions! No nervousness! and an explanation of WHY we are holding it nonetheless!) When we passed the "fruit of the vine" he told us to take and drink it whenever we were ready to symbolize that while we are all part of the body, Jesus died for each of us individually and cares for us individually. (Yahooo! I GET it now! There is actually a REASON why we are doing this!) I think so many churches miss the boat when it comes to communion. We just do it because we are supposed to instead of really thinking about what it is we are doing! That is dumb. We have to change it.

On a side note, while I was thinking about the night Jesus died and how he passed the cup... I would like to note that there was only one cup. Now, we used the little tiny cups for everybody, cause that would be one big ole cup if we all shared in church, maybe a little gross too.. but my point in saying this is that I think it is quite clear that drinking after other people is Biblical.