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Can We Return to the Original Intention of the Lord’s Supper
Posted by Strider in Bible & Theology, Church & Missions, IMPACT Features
Holy Communion. The Lord’s Supper. The Eucharist. The Breaking of Bread. What do these words communicate to you? I usually call it the Lord’s Supper myself but all of these are legitimate names. Today I would like to reprint some thoughts that I wrote a few years ago and add some new thoughts on where God is taking me in understanding the Lord’s Supper. I am convinced that as the Church grew towards the end of the first century already the concept of the church as an organization with a meeting was replacing the original gift that Jesus came to give us as the church as His community. As you read what I teach about the Supper I pray you will be motivated to discover what Jesus’ original intent for His body was.
I went down to Anfalas to witness a baptism a few years ago. We did a lot of teaching on baptism but I knew it was important to follow this up with the Lord’s Supper. Both of these important traditions in the Church witness the same thing. They both portray Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross. (By the way, I am using the word ‘tradition’ to describe these events rather than the theologically acceptable term ‘ordinance’ because it conveys an emotional force to me that ‘ordinance’ does not.) So, after we saw Kili and his wife baptized we went to their home. We sat on the floor around a cloth and I pulled out the box of juice and loaf of flat bread that is a major staple in all of Middle Earth. I showed them Matthew 26 and we talked about the Lord’s Supper. Verse 26 is a small parable for me concerning the entire event. It says:
While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take eat: This is my body.”
First, I should point out that this happened while they were eating. The New Testament knows nothing of a small cracker and an itty bitty cup passed out during some kind of theatrical show. They were in someones house eating a meal together. It was not a formal solemn thing. It was a significant life changing event that happened in the midst of normal life. I think most of our experiences with God should be like that. They didn’t meet at 11 am on a Sunday morning, but they ate from house to house- just as we do with our friends today.
Next, I explained to Kili and his wife the significance of the supper in the context of Matthew 26:26. What follows is taken from the table of contents of a book by Henri Nouwen. I can’t remember the title of the book and he took these subjects in another direction entirely but the chapter titles stuck with me as I went through this verse so I will give him credit.
Jesus took the bread. He himself as the bread of life was chosen by the Father. Jesus was not someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. He was God’s specific instrument uniquely designed for the purpose God chose him for. So are we. We are called by the Father himself to be who he has called us to be. Isaiah 43, speaking of God’s people says that he has ‘called us by name’, and ‘you are mine.’ You and I are not idly wandering through this world trying to do the ‘best we can’. No friends, the King meant something when he meant you. You are called with a purpose. He has taken you just as surely as Jesus picked up that bread.
He blessed it. Jesus as the bread of life was uniquely blessed. To be blessed by God means that God has put his hand on his life in a special way. Jesus is empowered, gifted, cared for, loved, guided, protected, and placed as a cornerstone in the ultimate building not made with hands. So are we. He blesses us. He empowers us. Jesus prays for us and guides us into his unique plans that we may be a part of the building he is making; the Kingdom that is coming.
He broke it. Jesus was broken many times in his life and none more fully and finally than on the cross at Calvary. We also are broken. Many times throughout our lives we are broken down in the difficult circumstances of life. How many of your hopes and dreams have been shattered? Loved ones lost? All your efforts and labors come to fruitless ends? It happens to all of us. It must. The message of the cross is to be born by those who lead the life of the cross. We must die. This is the message of baptism. We die to our old life and we rise to walk in the new life. But the old life has a way of lingering on. More death is always necessary this side of eternity. I am a huge fan of brokenness. We need it if we are to carry the authority to proclaim the resurrection. Brokenness builds in humility, perspective, and most of all character. It is what Almighty God is using to recreate us back into his image. The journey begins with the death of Jesus but it always ends in our own death. I don’t enjoy brokenness but I know without doubt that it is my friend.
He gave it. Once we are broken we can be given away. Jesus was broken on the cross and through his breaking the world was changed. The Kingdom of God came new and we are set free as a result. This is the Good News. The bread of life was given to us. We in turn are given to others. In the Great Commission of Matthew 28 we are sent out on a mission to participate in the redemption of mankind. I told Kili that I was sending him out on mission with God. He looked at me with wide eyes. He understood well what that would mean for him as a former Muslim in a Muslim land. I can confirm that since then Kili has been more than faithful in going and he has suffered for it.
I went on to talk about the shed blood and forgiveness of sins. Through Jesus blood we are a new community and communities have traditions that give them cohesiveness. They have common experiences that build bonds of love and friendship. This is what the Lord’s Supper is for. We remember Jesus together. In recognizing him among us in this way we worship him and in worshiping him we are transformed to become more and more like him. I will say that the Church in Anfalas does not do the Lord’s Supper very often. The reason is simple. They imitate everything we did in front of them and we never did the Lord’s Supper as a team down in Anfalas. We are working to fix that mistake. We are trying to recover what Jesus meant when gave us this tradition that would enable us to think of him ‘as oft as you drink of it’. Do you really think that means once a quarter? It sounds a lot like he means every time we eat together. Let us break bread together often and in remembering Jesus together let us remember not only who he was, but who he is and who he is calling us to be. Let us not be sidetracked by issues such as who gets to pass out the bread and juice or who you will eat with in your own home. These issues are not mentioned in the scriptures. Let us focus on what is mentioned; that Jesus wants us to remember his sacrifice. We do not remember it out of some vain sense of sentimentality but out of a true love for him we live like him and love like him. His Kingdom is accessed through the cross. Let us embrace our brokeness and love a world that is dying without Jesus.
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This is why I love your writing, Strider. You articulate what I’ve felt but have been unable to put into words. Ever since I saw the last supper scene in The Passion of the Christ, I have been struck with the mundane, prosaic, ordinary nature of the Lord’s Supper as it likely was practiced in the First Century. I was absolutely floored at that time by the words of Jesus that “as often as you do this, you do show the Lord’s death until he comes,” and that it didn’t mean a formalized service in church. It meant EVERY time we broke bread and passed a drink. That scene of the movie left an impression on me more than the whole rest of the film put together.
The opening song of Fiddler on the Roof, Tradition, points to a very Jewish tendency to imbue even the most common of actions with deep spiritual significance. The Lord’s Supper seems to be exactly that sort of thing – the imbuing of significance to the common, ordinary practice of breaking bread and passing the cup as a constant memorial to Our Lord’s death, burial, resurrection, and soon return.
Thank you so much for sharing this.
Thanks for the kind words, Rick. I am still struggling to build my life, and the life of my community around the LS instead of the ‘meeting’. I am still on this journey but I like very much where this is taking us here in Middle Earth. Think of the power of this! If everytime we met for dinner together as the body of Christ we declared, ‘This is the body of Christ broken for you…’ How could we fight and feud after that! How could we fail to love and forgive each other after looking each other in the eyes and saying, ‘This is the blood of the New Covenant….’ I am still processing, still learning.
Strider,
I have found the Lord’s Supper to be one of the most perplexing issues of orthopraxy I’ve had to deal with, largely because I find the BF&M to be (or at least generally viewed as) strict regarding the practice.
I’ve heard it argued, based on the BF&M, that we should only take comunion when gathered together at a local church in the midst of the whole (or mostly whole) congregation. That is, individual Bible study groups, families, or other gatherings of believers (e.g. youth groups) shouldn’t have the Lord’s Supper apart from “the” Sunday gathering.
What are your thoughts on how “the Lord’s Supper as an ordinance of the church” relates to these smaller groups and gatherings that don’t consider themselves a “church” or are splinter groups of a church?
We have a couple of problems when addressing these issues. Any answer I give will create more questions than answers but here goes!
One, I acknowledge that the arguments around the LS were based on real needs at the time, my problem is that they used the wrong tool for the job. To start with ‘a local church’ was not defined in the NT the way we define it. What we have in the West is a registered organization with a building etc etc. Jesus and the disciples knew nothing of that. They lived as believers in community. They didn’t have an ‘organization’ they had relationship. The church in the West had such relationships. The local church a few hundred years ago and even 50 years ago meant community. People who tried to do the LS, or even lead bible studies in their homes were trying to escape or break community. The reaction to this was to somehow codify the authority of the Pastor into something the NT does not recognize. What they should have done was to quote 1 Cor 11 and talk about the LS bringing us together and not dividing us.
Now of course, we don’t live in community in the West. We are each family isolated and we only come together on the Sunday or Wed meeting times. In this context the LS can only have some kind of symbolic meaning between ‘me and Jesus’. It is a neutered sad and solemn thing compared to the way it was intended to remind any brethren gathered together why they were there and the price that was paid for their fellowship.
I really think that we need to recover eating together and practicing the LS as they did in Acts. Not only did they meet together in the Temple but they ‘broke bread from house to house’. When we live like that then perhaps living the NT life of the church will result in NT power as well.
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Really? I didn’t know anyone was reading. Thanks guys.
I love the writing of Nouen.
Is a wonderful story about him . . . he was becoming a very celebrated theologian writer and sought-after speaker at the Ivy League Schools and in the midst of all the new fame and all the new acclamation, he felt the call of the Spirit that this way of life was not for him.
So he sought a place to work at one of the homes for the severely handicapped run by his friend, Jean Vanier, and there, Nouen regained the peace of Christ as he cared for, and fed the handicapped residents. There, among those who really needed him, his spirit was once more nourished, in the Way of Our Lord.
Thanks Christiane, My favorite quote from Nouen’s ‘Road to Daybreak’ was also a story concerning the LS. He said that one day as he was passing out the bread at Mass he was repeating to each person, ‘This is the body of Christ.’ As he became mechanical and thoughtless in the repetition of this duty he suddenly realized that this was a picture of what he should always be doing. In every word and every action he should be saying, ‘This is the body of Christ’ because only Christ could meet the needs of those around him. I have repeated the story poorly but it was very impactful for me at the time.
Also from Nouen,
“It takes a lot of humiliation to build in a little humility.”
the Holy Spirit helps us to find humility.
God has a way of bringing us to where we can be at peace with Him and our fellowman, if we let Him.
pride can destroy so much
There is one little problem that is bothering me about communion these days, and it is the fact that in England and, I have heard lately, in America there is beginning to appear the idea of transubstantiation with reference to communion among Baptists????
I have not heard that but if true it is definitely going in the wrong direction. I am proposing that Jesus was giving us a tool to build our fellowship around and transubstantiation is trying to turn the memory of Jesus sacrifice into a magic act. Yuck.