Communion, what is it really all about? I can remember myself as a young man walking into Church and seeing the silver platter with all the broken pieces of bread and the small cup which held red grape juice. It was never the Sunday I looked forward to. The reason was that as soon as I saw the bread and juice I felt condemned. This was the day I was supposed to “examine” myself and see if I was “worthy”. It brought back all the things I had done wrong. I played judge with myself and began to lose respect for me as a person.
But is this what is communion supposed to be about? No, of course not, but sadly this is how it makes most of us feel. It condemns us and makes us feel as though we have let God down. We feel totally unworthy and it seems as though we are not the righteousness of God as it says in the Bible. But what did Jesus Himself say? Did He not say in John 12:47 that He did not come to the world to judge it, but rather to save it? So if He does not judge you, why would you judge yourself? Because understand this and understand it thoroughly; Jesus was judged for you. He was judge in your place, so you no longer can be!
So what does it mean to take the cup and bread “unworthily”? In the simplest form it is not you who are unworthy, (because Christ made you worthy) but rather it is the act of taking communion unworthily. This is what the Church of Corinth was doing in I Corinthians 11 when the Apostle Paul was writing them and gave them these words:
21For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
22What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? what shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.
Paul is talking specifically to the Church of Corinth about was “how” they were taking the Lord’s Supper. He is saying; you are cutting in front of others to get your food or the bread first and you are getting drunk off the wine! This is what Paul is taking about and we need to keep what he says in the context of this.
In verse 29 Paul shows us what he means and what the whole chapter is about:
29For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
What is making the Church of Corinth “unworthy” is not themselves, but rather what they are not doing. They were not discerning the Lord’s body! But now I ask what are we doing when we take Communion? If we are examining ourselves to see what we need to “improve upon”, we too are not discerning the Lord’s body.
We are to examine the way we are taking communion. The Greek word for examine in verse 28 is dokimazo; which means to prove, discern or approve. What Paul is taking about is prove to yourself that you are taking the Lord’s Supper to discern His body. The question really is: Would Jesus approve of the way you are acknowledging Him when you take Communion?
This is what Communion is supposed to be about; remembering and acknowledging Him. By taking Communion we are bringing Jesus into the Natural realm, to be clearly seen. We are signifying, representing and proclaiming the fact of the Lord’s death and His return. When we partake of the bread we are signifying that it was broken for our healing.
This was something that the Apostles knew. They knew that the bread represented His body and they had seen how through His body people had been healed. In Mark chapter 5 we see the woman with the issue of blood. She kept saying to herself: if I could just touch the hem of His garment, I would be healed. She did, she was! And it says in verse 30 that Jesus immediately knew virtue had gone out of Him.
The Greek word for virtue is dunamis and its meaning is a force, miraculous power, ability and abundance. This is what flowed out of His body when He was on this earth and this is what would flow out of the bread that we partake of if we would discern it as His body. But as it was with the woman with the issue of blood, it was her faith that pulled her healing out of Jesus; it will be our faith that will pull our need out of the bread.
When we partake of the cup, we are signifying our redemption as it says in Colossians 1:14:
14In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
We are saying we are redeemed from the curse of the law; that His blood has been shed for us and we are made perfect in Him! We were washed by the blood and there is nothing the devil or we can do to change that. All that is left is choice whether we accept that He did this for us or not.
The Lord’s Supper really is something beautiful and perfect. It was what the early Church was built upon. Acts 2:42, 43 and 46 shows us this:
42And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
43And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
46And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.
They did it daily. It brought them into one accord and a singleness of heart as verse 46 says. It brought them together and made them strong as it should the Church of today. Signs and wonders followed them and they will follow us, if we put first things first.