Thursday leading up to Easter is called "Maunday Thursday" in the Christian calendar. "Maundy" is from the Latin meaning "mandate," as in Jesus mandated that we eat the bread and drink the cup--communion or the Eucharist.
Which is all well and good except that ever since last Thursday I've been realizing that, with all apologies to my sacramental-type friends in the Anglican, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Lutheran traditions, I just don't get it.
Growing up in Baptist churches with a communion service maybe once a quarter, I realize that communion in my contexts had a low value and Scripture a very high value. And I think that if I had to choose one or the other, I'm glad for the tradition that I grew up in.
Bottom line, how do people grow spiritually? Communion wouldn't make my top five, maybe not even my top ten. I don't believe that taking communion will break someone's porn addiction, for example. But Scripture, prayer, community, accountability... I have seen these things make a difference.
Take away communion, people can still grow. Take away Scripture or prayer, not so much. So what's this thing all about?
I was pondering these things as I visited a church on Sunday. They happened to be having communion this past week. And for a variety of reasons I was deeply impressed with my need. My need for mercy, for strength, for new life, for refreshing.
And then I got the elements. And something about the bread and the cup impressed the reality on me: I had already received those things I felt I needed. Mercy? Strength? New Life? Check, check and check again. I had been given those things and more in the work on the cross.
A little piece of bread and a shot of grape juice spoke those realities to me, re-oriented me around the most-true things that I had lost sight of in the clutter of my everyday life and the various and sundry tyrannies of the urgent.
I still have a long way to go to really "get" all that's wrapped up in the communion thing. I don't ever think that I'll be a full-fledged sacramental kind of guy. But the Lord shed some light last Sunday on a part of my corporate disciplines experience that I needed to be awakened to
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