{I beg your pardon for being a bit behind in blogging all this.}
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and
when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is
for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In
the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the
new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of
me." 26 For
as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death
until he comes.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until he comes.
·
Sometimes the greatest thing that
families and other groups can do is eat together. Those meals show hospitality
and care and the desire to be together.
·
The celebration of the Jewish Passover
involves a meal called the Seder. In
that meal, all those present remember the meal eaten “hurriedly” before the
passing over of the Lord’s angel which led to the freedom of the people of
Israel.
·
As this meal begins, the youngest
person in the room asks “How is this night different from other nights?” In
answer, the story of the Exodus is told again and the meal is eaten as a way of
remembering what has gone before.
·
For the Jewish people, the memory of
the Exodus is more than a memorial of what has gone before. As they understand it,
the Exodus from Egypt is an event that is not simply past history, but an event
in with they are included, an event that happened to them. They know
they were not personally present at that first Seder meal or the crossing of
the Red Sea, but in the presence of their now distant ancestors and the
heritage they share with them, they were there. The meal does more than remind
them of what had happened to others; the meal reminds them of what has happened
TO THEM. Each person is part of the entire history of the people.
·
This may be hard for us to understand.
We often see history as something past and left behind. To think that we are
somehow present to a different time and place is not something most of us are
willing to accept.
·
We will have to change our mind set a
bit. We will have to see ourselves as a people rather than a collection of
individuals, randomly sitting together in the same time and place. We are a
people because we are all called by and in the grace of God. When we gather on
this night to pray and sing and listen and eat together we are here with each
other and with the One who as called us together.
·
We are also here with all those who
have been called by God’s grace, no matter where or when. What we do tonight,
we do in remembrance of the Lord Jesus who called his disciples together and
took bread and wine and gave them a sign of his enduring presence for their
strength and their comfort of heart, no matter what was going on around them.
·
We don’t simply reenact the meal in
the upper room. In an extraordinary way, this IS the meal in the upper room.
·
Our food may be simple, the bread and
the wine drawn from our world around us. The Word of God makes this simple meal
different, just as it has made our lives different.
·
When we gather like this, each and
every time we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. We proclaim his being
“handed over” as part of God’s plan to grace us with salvation through Jesus’
death. In the grace of God, every time we eat this bread and drink this cup, we
actually participate in the death of Christ.
·
We don’t stand at the shore of the Red
Sea as our Jewish sisters and brothers do when the story of the Exodus is told.
However, we are present and eat at the table where Jesus took bread and took
wine and gave his very self for our salvation.
·
We gather as a people, redeemed at
great cost. We gather as a family, called together to remember so much that the
memory shapes our lives. We are no longer alone; we are with each other. God is
with us.
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