Communion

I have been, up until the past week, very involved in the multimedia department of my church. Yesterday was the first Sunday morning service in years that we did not videotape. That means that it was the first time in years that I have actually been "in service." As a result, yesterday was the first time in years that I have received communion. Some of you will probably be shocked by this; I know that some churches teach that if you haven't received communion within at least the last year, then you are in trouble with God. Personally, the cynical part of my nature suspects that has more to do with the offering than it does with communion...

The rite of communion has its roots in the Last Supper, where Jesus broke bread with the Apostles, and gave them wine, and told them that the bread was his body, and the wine was his blood, and that they should eat and drink to remember Him. Now, the Last Supper was, itself, an observance of the Passover. Later on, God commanded Israel to keep the Passover on an annual basis (maybe that's where the idea that you must take communion at least once a year comes from). Clearly, the Passover foreshadowed the crucifixion (at Passover, a lamb without blemish was sacrificed so that the death angel would pass over the households that were sanctified with the blood of the lamb, while a the crucifixion, the perfect Lamb of God was sacrificed so that anyone who is sanctified with the blood of the Lamb will have eternal life).

The word communion is used only four times in the New Testament, and two of those times it is used simply to mean fellowship (in fact, the Greek word, koinonia, is translated as communion four times, but is used sixteen other times--twelve of those times it is translated as fellowship). In First Corinthians, the term is used twice (in the same verse) in a clear reference to what is now termed as the rite of communion. I can't find anywhere in the New Testament where a timetable is given for how often one should (or must) receive communion, although, in the very next chapter of First Corinthians, Apostle Paul describes the rite of communion, and tells the Corinthians that, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come."

By the way, some churches use grape juice instead of wine in their communion services. I don't think it really matters, personally. Of course, I don't believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation, either (quite frankly, the fact that there is a debate over transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation puzzles me. There isn't that much difference between the two beliefs). Maybe if I did, I would be offended by the idea that people think that grape juice can be used instead of the blood of Christ. I think it is fairly obvious (although, to some, less obvious, because they have a twenty-first century mindset and can't stop to think about what life was like before refrigeration), that, in Biblical times, grape juice wasn't a viable beverage, because sometimes when people drank it, they became violently ill, and no one knew why. Wine, on the other hand, could be stored at room temperature (even when room temperature was in the eighties) for years without going bad (and when it did "go bad" it simply turned to vinegar--not exactly tasty, but not particularly harmful, either, especially when ingested in the small amounts that are conceivable for "wine" that doesn't taste like wine any more). We, of course, know that grape juice can be kept for a very long time, as long as it is refrigerated so that bacteria don't have a chance to grow in the juice, while wine can be kept at room temperature for a very long time, because the alcohol in the wine kills the bacteria. We have options that the early church didn't have.