"Never mind the bread and wine, unless you can use them as folks often use their eyeglasses. What do they use them for? To look at? No, to look through them. So, use the bread and wine as a pair of glasses. Look through them, and do not be satisfied until you can say, “Yes, yes, I can see the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world….We believe that Jesus Christ spiritually comes to us and refreshes us, and in that sense, we eat his flesh and drink his blood.” ― Charles Spurgeon
Dear Friends,
If you want my opinion, I think that theologically speaking we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in many instances just to distance ourselves from tradition, or ritualism. Take Communion or the Lord’s Supper—whichever term you prefer. We have proudly clung to the ceremony as a symbol or sign of Christ sacrificial death, burial and resurrection in this sacred service; however, I am increasingly persuaded that we have fostered a culture that has a form of Godliness but denies the power thereof, and from such we must turn away (2Timothy 3:5).
Friends, the scripture plainly teaches that we are to celebrate the Lord’s Supper as often as we meet, yet we Pentecostals as well as other Evangelical and Protestants alike have decided that once a month is enough, or once a quarter or some even say once a year. What gives? Is Communion not more integral to faith and saving grace than that? I think so. We should not, I feel, be guilty of treating this sacred ceremony so cavalierly.
Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood (as gruesome as that may sound to an unbeliever) you have no life in you (John 6:53), he said. Oh, some would counter, he’s talking about spiritual things here. So? Is it not the Spirit that gives life? And, how in anyone's imagination would that exclude the visible symbol or sign of His Spirit?
The thing at issue here is the general understanding of what a sign or symbol's nature is—we tend to think of a symbol as separate from what it symbolizes. Not so, I would argue. A symbol in the Biblical sense is a sign that is intimately connected with what it symbolizes.
Allow me to use this analogy. Two lovers, say, for instance, have caught the twinkle in each other’s eyes—that’s love felt, but not consummated, there’s nothing concrete there. They then move closer, hold hands, smile at each other—that’s love felt again, also. Then suddenly they kiss. That is then unmistakably a visible, undeniable sign and symbol of their love for one another. (This is, of course, in an ideal world.) Once they kiss, the symbol is not external to the love which it symbolizes but is part of it.
At communion, Christ in some mysterious way presents himself to us as we eat the bread and drink the wine and is in no way external to the symbol. Christ actually meets us there. If He didn’t why bother? Just to say that this is simply a gentle reminder, a remembrance only of what He has done for us falls short in pronouncing the efficacy of Communion. If there is no efficacy, then why the caution not to take it unworthily (1 Cor. 11:27)?
In closing, may I say that Communion may well remind us, but friends, to my way of thinking the kiss is there, too.
Like Jacob of old, let us meet Him at the altar (Gen. 35:1)!
JimR_/
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