(I’ve heard a lot of people serve Communion. Most try to tie it back to a sermon they just heard, and their unpreparedness shows. This isn’t my “I could do it better” thing; this is simply what I would say if I served Communion.)
I’d join the movement if there was one I could believe in.
Yea, I would break bread and wine if there was a church I could receive in.
Because I need it now…
U2 – Acrobat
I was going to start this with, “I grew up in a tradition where communion was…”
The thing is that I don’t remember taking communion that often until college.
I don’t have this deep-rooted emotional attachment to it.
I don’t see youthful tradition (habit?) when I meander down memory lane.
God and me bonding over the bread and wine is not a picture that my memory paints.
Regardless, somewhere along the way in my ongoing understanding of communion, I found 1 Corinthians 11:27-30.
For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself first, and in this way let him eat the bread and drink of the cup. For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself. That is why many of you are weak and sick, and quite a few are dead.
Yikes!
Really?
People have DIED because of the way they took communion?
Holy smokes, this is serious. So, let me say this.
This is my story.
I don’t want to mislead you about communion. I’m simply sharing my story (my testimony) about how I receive the bread and the cup.
Somewhere along the way – I truly don’t know where or why – I wondered if the “unworthy” part was talking about me. As in, “am I worthy to take communion?”
Here’s the problem: I don’t like what I see when I examine myself to see if I am worthy.
You may not see it, but I do.
And God does.
And He and I both know that if it is up to me… then I am never worthy to receive communion.
So yeah, each communion, I ask myself if I am worthy to break the bread and drink the wine, and the answer is no.
But that is the point.
If I am worthy, I don’t need what the bread and wine remember.
If I am worthy, I don’t need the broken bread; Jesus’ flesh that was broken for me.
If I am worthy, I don’t need the wine; Jesus’ blood that was poured out for me.
So when I break the bread and drink the wine, I bow my head, I beat my chest, and I say, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13)
If I am worthy, then I don’t need the bread, and I don’t need the wine.
But I’m not.
So I do.
Leave a Reply