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What a tremendous meeting we had last Wednesday night as we entered a discussion on the Feast of Passover looking at it’s significance in the lives of the children of Israel, the life of Jesus Christ and the life of the New Testament believer.
One of the points discussed was the progression of intimacy and fellowship that was revealed in the Passover meal in Exodus 12, as a lamb became the lamb and then your lamb. Sacrificing something to God that has personal meaning and value is more meaningful than sacrificing something to Him that we are not very attached to. So it was with the Passover Lamb. It had to be a lamb that the people had come to know and love; a lamb with which they had fellowshipped.
What we eat and drink mentally, spiritually and physically becomes a part of us. You are what you eat. Therefore, as we partake of Christ and His Spirit, we become one with Him and closer to one another, because we are the body of Christ on the earth today.
From the Jewish Passover, Christ instituted the Communion Meal but partaking of communion is more than taking a sip of wine or grape juice and eating a small piece of bread. If this is all communion has become in our understanding, we have missed the underlying importance of its meaning in our lives. Communion is fully expressed as we are united with Him and with one another in a Spirit of love and in unity with one another.
At the Passover in the Old Testament God’s children were protected from the judgement of God by the blood of their lamb as they ate the flesh of their lamb and unleaven bread in their homes.
At the Passover in the Gospels, the blood of Jesus Christ became the wine and His body the bread.
In the Passover In the New Testament the sharing and the fellowship of Christ’s Spirit becomes the wine and the sharing and the fellowship in the Body of Christ (His people) becomes the bread.
1 Cor 10:16-17 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
We need to hear what Paul says. He says our communion with Christ is the wine (the cup of blessing) and our communion with one another is the bread.
Paul did not say that the blood of Christ was the wine. He said the communion of the blood of Christ was the wine. Paul did not say that the body of Christ was the bread. He said the communion of the body of Christ was the bread.
This revelation sheds a whole knew light on the true communion meal. It demands that we are actively participating in our relationship with Christ and that we are actively involved with one another in sharing His life with one another. The word communion is the Greek word "koinonia" meaning participation, fellowship or intercourse.
We can’t sip a little wine and eat a morsel of bread in a service and slip out the door of a building and not be actively involved in our relationship with Christ and with one another. We can’t do this and still believe that we have participated in Communion as Christ intended. If we do, I think we have not discerned the Lord’s body as it pertains to the communion meal. If we do, I believe we have a very shallow and I might say a very superficial understanding of what the true communion of the Saints is all about.
On the cross, Jesus partook of the cup of cursing, (separation from God) so we could partake of the cup of blessings, (fellowship with God)
On the cross Jesus allowed His body to be broken and separated from us, so we could be united and in fellowship with one another in Him.
It is a sad event when we can gather together and share a sip of wine and a piece of bread with sin in our lives and with malice in our hearts toward one another and still believe that we have taken part in a communion service. Has the communion service become a religious form, rather than a relationship love feast?
If it has, I believe it is our responsibility to change the communion service into what the Lord intended; an environment where we can express the unconditional love of God to one another. A place where we can feel the love of God flowing among us and where we are actively involved in the well being of our brothers and sisters in the Lord and for anyone else that desires to be in our presence.
Don’t you long to drink that wine and eat that bread, the wine of sweet communion with Christ and the bread of unrestrained fellowship with all the members of Christ?
Let us strive to attain it.
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