Do this and remember me.
And then imagine that after dinner he grabs the bottle of wine and begins pouring it into his glass – you move your glass towards him cos you want a top up yourself but instead he puts the bottle down again and passes his glass around saying ‘this is my blood. And my blood is going to seal a new covenant between God and human beings.’
Do this and remember me.
It is an odd ritual. Some might class it socially unacceptable behaviour these days. But it’s a ritual that has continued for about 2000 years.
What is communion all about?
Because this meal has been at the heart of Christian worship since day one and within this meal are the roots of the church.
At Church.co.uk, we have five key values that underpin everything that happens within the life of the church: Intimacy, Inclusivity, Interdependence, Involvement and Influence.
These values are at the heart of the church. In communion, we see Jesus establishing and demonstrating those values;
Communion is Intimate
This is a meal between friends. When Jesus initiated this ritual, he did so with 12 guys (and probably some of the others that toured with him) that had become his family over the past three years. They’d lived and worked together [imagine, 13 lads, touring around Palestine... it must’ve been a riot!]. And now they were sharing in his last supper with them before he went to the cross. John, who was one of the disciples who was closest to Jesus and who wrote one of the gospels, described how on that same night Jesus told them to ‘love one another... In the same way I have loved you, love one another.’
He told them that you know when someone really cares for you because they’re willing to die for you. And Jesus would follow through with that willingness to die for them the very next morning. And this meal was an intimate reminder of that love that Jesus had for his followers... and he includes us in the intimacy. Communion is intimate. It reminds us how much Jesus loves us. Not an airy-fairy ‘i love you’, not even a drunken ‘i love you’, but a real ‘I love you so much that I’m willing to die for you!’ Communion is intimate.
Communion is Interdependent
That last supper, or the first communion, was part of a Jewish festival - the Passover festival. It was when the whole community would remember the way God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. Everyone gathered together to hear and remember the story of the Exodus: Moses and Pharaoh, the plagues, the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments and all that. It was a community event; a coming together to celebrate their heritage.
The celebration of Israel’s rescue was good.
Jesus was about to rescue the whole world.
Through communion we have a way of coming together to celebrate not only our individual response to Jesus’ love for us personally, but to celebrate our collective rescue. Communion is interdependent, it’s relational, it’s meant to be shared – you cannot share a meal on your own! Whether it’s in a small group setting or as the whole congregation what we see in and through communion is God bringing people together through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Communion is interdependent. It is relational, it builds friendship and reminds us we are all part of the one church; we’ve all got different roles to play within that church but we are all on the same team! Which leads us onto our next value... inclusivity
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