THE MEMORY OF HER DEATH - David Jeremiah

She was 10 years old when she died. As often happens in the death of child in the family, the husband and wife first grieved, then began to cast blame upon each other and decay into quarrels and then vicious arguments. The had just filed the papers for their divorce, and they were seated in the living room filled with hatred for each other and with conviction that their marriage must end. They hardly looked at each other. They had just had cross words and the rage of the moment was just subsiding. The husband absently picked up a shoe that lay beside the sofa and held it in his hands. It was his daughter's. Slowly, he turned it in his hands, not even perceiving what he held. Slowly, he looked up to see his wife's eyes fixed on the shoe, and then he realized what he had in his hands. Their eyes remained on the shoe for a few moments and then they looked at each other and broke down in tears. The memory of the love they'd had for their daughter, of all that she had represented in their lives - the joy, the laughter, the beauty of their family, all that they were now on the verge of tossing away - flooded in on them in a moment. And in that moment, they were healed. Healed of the anger, their division, and of their divorce.

HIS BODY WAS PIERCED - David Jeremiah

Though His bones were prophesied as not to be broken, the New Testament speaks of His body as being broken… and it was. It was broken by the whips of the Roman soldier who tortured Him. His brow was broken by the thorns of the crown they shoved upon His head. His face was "broken" from the skin pulled out along with His beard as someone tore it out. His hands and feet were broken by the nails driven by His executioners, and His side by the spear of the Roman testing His body to see if He was dead.

CELEBRATION

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are traditional times of celebration for us. Have you ever thought about what the word "celebrate" means? We always want to celebrate with a crowd of people - usually friends and acquaintances. Celebrating by yourself just doesn't seem to have the same feeling.

We need a reason to celebrate. We celebrate the start of the year, we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, holidays that roll around once a year - but always, there is a reason for our celebration. It's most common that the reason looks to the past - such as birthdays or anniversaries, or national holidays. Even New Year's Eve, with its resolutions for the coming year, shows old Father Time on the way out as well as Baby Time coming in.

Sometimes we celebrate a person, rather than an event. Memorial Day is for veterans; Labor Day is for workers; Valentine's Day for lovers - and St. Patrick's day for anyone who can recognize the color "green."

Nobody celebrates with a diet. The diet starts the day after. Food and drink are a very real part of the celebration.

Finally, a celebration is a happy time - even a joyous one. The 4 th of July may have it s solemn moments of remembrance - but it must have fireworks.

We use the same word "celebrate" to mean that we are taking the Lord's Supper. We often speak in our public worship of "celebrating Communion."

• We celebrate the Lord's Supper in a group. It may be a small group, even as small as 2 people.
• Do we celebrate for a reason? The greatest reason in the world: Jesus, the Messiah died on a cross that we might have eternal life. If eternal life is not celebrating both of the Crucifixion and the Crucifixion.
• That reason looks to the past, just like our other celebrations - to the hill at Calvary. It is a greater celebration in that it also looks to the present, as we examine ourselves. It is greater yet, for it looks to the future - when He returns.
• Some celebrations are for events, some are for persons - ours is for both. It is the celebration both of the Crucifixion and the Crucified.
• Surprisingly enough, even this most sacred of celebrations must be done with food and drink. In its roots, the Passover, it was referred to as "the Feast." Other celebrations fatten the body. This one fattens the soul.

THE HOUSE OF GOD Construction worker Frank Silecchia in Guideposts 9/02

Picking my way through the massive piles of debris, I peered into what had become a sort of grotto. Illuminated by the pale light of dawn were shapes… crosses. What? How did these get here? The largest was about 20 feet high. It must have weighted a couple of tons.

In that little grotto I felt a strange sense of peace and stillness. I could almost hear God saying, The terrible thing done at this site was meant for evil. But I will turn it to good. Have faith. I am here. I feel to my knees in front of the largest cross. Tears came, and I couldn't top them. I cried like a baby.

Finally I was able to pull myself together. I grabbed my gear and left the strange grotto to go back to search-and-rescue work. But first I spray-painted "God's House" on the atrium ruins.

Digging day after day at Ground Zero was the hardest work I'd ever done. Often I was so drained I felt I couldn't go on. That's when I'd go to God's House. Standing there in front of that 20 foot high steel beam cross, I always felt my strength and spirit renewed.

Word spread. The cross had the same healing effect on others too. Firemen, police, volunteers, grieving survivors, visiting dignitaries and clergy. They would walk into God's House, see the cross and fall to their knees crying, like I had. Some people sang, some prayed. Everyone left changed.

There are some who say that the cross I found is nothing more than steel. That it was just plain physics that broke the steel beam into the shape of a cross when it plunged through the roof of building six. But I believe differently.

So does my friend Father Brian Jordan. He was a chaplain at Ground Zero, and is a priest at St. Francis of Assisi in midtown. When the time came for what was left of building six to be removed, God's House faced demolition. Father Jordan talked to officials and persuaded them to save the cross. After it was removed from the site, ironworkers fixed the cross to a concrete base, then hoisted it up and mounted it atop a 40 foot foundation that had been a pedestrian walkway outside the World Trade Center. It stood high enough that the rescue workers who were down in the pit could see it whenever they lifted their heads.

BREAKING BREAD BROKE BITTERNESS Esther Peterson , in Guideposts, 9/02

My brother and 5 sisters and I had had our differences growing up. They festered into deep resentments in the years after we left home. I didn't realize how deep until Mother died.

After the funeral our grievances boiled over. George was upset that Mom had left Mary the antique black walnut bedroom set - "It's worth a lot and Mary already has more than the rest of us together." I got the flatware. Evelyn would inherit the house because she had lived with Mother. Becky and Betty some china and Mary the piano, which she'd bought for Mom. But Dorothy, Mom's primary caregiver, resented that some of us were absent during Mom's final days.

Leaving Mom's house was so sad. My husband, Don, is a Lutheran pastor. His parishioners buried their differences when they came together for communion. Couldn't a family do the same? If we sat down for a meal, I thought, maybe we could forgive each other and be a family again.

It was 5 years before we all got together again. The night before, Dorothy said, "If we can get through tomorrow without any major explosions, it will be a miracle."

At first things felt awkward as we all struggled to behave. But by dinnertime it was better. We laughed as we told stories about our childhood. The memories were so sweet, but there was something missing.

Afterward, I took out a loaf of bread. "Since we've all been apart so long," I said, "and since Don's a pastor, I thought we might share communion." Everyone agreed. We read Scripture and prayed. Don said, "Do this in remembrance of me." He broke the bread and it to us.

Unbelievably, grievances and hurt dissolved. We hugged, and became a family again, together in God's grace, our missing ingredient.

KNOWN IN THE BAKING OF THE BREAD Victor Knowles Christian Standard 9/24/2000

Several years ago, just a week before Passover, I witnessed a marvelous "Christ in the Passover" presentation by a representative from Jews for Jesus in San Francisco. Like the 2 men on the road to Emmaus, I came to know Christ better in the breaking of the bread. Because of the baking of the bread! Communion will never be the same for me.

I was most impressed by the explanation of how the Lord Jesus Christ is dramatically seen in the Passover bread. For centuries, Jewish people have used what is called matzah in the Passover celebration. Matzah is the Hebrew word for "without leaven."

The apostle Paul states in I Corinthians 5:7,8 that Christ is our Passover, "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." In Scripture, leaven normally symbolizes sin. In that same Corinthian passage, Paul contrasts "malice and wickedness" with "sincerity and truth." The unleavened bread, therefore, represents the sinless life of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

But there is additional symbolism that is rich and rewarding to discover. Matzah is pierced to prevent excessive bubbling of the dough in the baking process. The Bible tells us that Christ was pierced for our sins on the cross. Zechariah 12:10 contains an amazing Messianic prophecy: "Then they shall look on Me whom they have pierced."
The tiny perforations in the matzah cause uneven browning, or stripes. The dark, brown stripes are yet another beautiful picture of Christ in the Passover. The prophet Isaiah declared, "By His stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

EVANGELISTIC SUPPER Donald A. Nash Christian Standard 1/30/00

Some congregations, I understand, have even dropped the communion service from the regular morning worship hour, just inviting those who wish to partake to go to another room for the Lord’s Supper after the service or serving it during the week. The reasoning, I’m told, is that the strange practice of taking the loaf and cup frightens away "seekers" (formerly known as sinners).

Don’t they realize that the Lord’s Supper is the greatest evangelistic tool we have? Paul says through the proper observance of the Supper "you proclaim the death of the Lord till He comes" (I Corinthians 11:26). The Communion service is certainly a greater aid to evangelism than a cross on a church building, on the baptistery wall, or on a necklace.

Robert Tinsky was reared in Judaism. Dissatisfied spiritually, he visited a Christian Church for the first time, seeking some religious truth. He was astounded by the observance of the Lord’s Supper. He didn’t understand it. He asked some young people seated near him what it meant. They faithfully told him the gospel story as portrayed in the loaf and cup. He was amazed that there was a God who loved mankind enough to give His Son to die for us and at the wisdom that originated such a living memorial. He became a Christian and a faithful preacher of the gospel.

And on the Lord's own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.

And let no man, having his dispute with his fellow, join your assembly until they have been reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be defiled; . . .

BONHOEFFER’S SACRAMENT by Martin Thielen in Leadership Winter 94

Bonhoeffer was a brilliant young pastor and seminary teacher who opposed Adolph Hitler’s policies in the 1930s. On April 5, 1943, the Germans arrested Bonhoeffer and put him in prison. Two years later the Nazis executed him, hanging him on the gallows just days before the Allies swept in to liberate Germany.

About 10 weeks after his arrest, Bonhoeffer ended a letter to his parents with these words:

"It is Monday, and I was just sitting down to a dinner of turnips and potatoes when a parcel you sent me by Ruth arrived. Such things give me greater joy than I can say. Although I am utterly convinced that nothing can break the bonds between us, I seem to need some outward token or sign to reassure me. In this way, material things become the vehicles of spiritual realities. I suppose it is rather like the felt need in our religion for sacraments."

Bonhoeffer knew his parents loved him. Yet he still hungered for that love to be reaffirmed. He needed to be reminded of their love in a tangible way. His package from home served that purpose, and Bonhoeffer saw the Lord’s Supper doing the same.

WE KNOW IT’S ONLY GRAPE JUICE - Priscilla Larson, Lexington, Mass.

My brother-in-law, who is a minister, responded to a Red Cross appeal for blood donations. When he didn’t come home by the time his young son expected him, the boy asked his mother,

"Is Dad going around visiting all the sick people?"

His mother replied, "He’s giving blood."

"But we know it’s really grape juice, don’t we Mom?"

Justin Martyr's witness - 100 to 167 "On Sunday a meeting is held of all who live in the cities and villages, and a section is read from the memoirs of the Apostles and the writings of the Prophets, as long as time permits. When the reading is finished, the president, in a discourse, gives the admonition and exhortation to imitate these noble things. After this we all arise and offer a common prayer. At the close of the prayer, as we have before described, bread and wine and thanks for them according to his ability, and the congregation answers, "Amen." Then the consecrated elements are distributed to each one and partaken of, and are carried by the deacons to the houses of the absent."

COMMUNION ON THE MOON Guideposts July 1989 p. 23

Twenty yrs. ago, on July 20, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin climbed out of their lunar module Eagle and took their historic 1st steps on the moon. Little known to others, another first took place on that day.

Before the lift-off, Aldrin was looking for a way to honor God's presence in the Apollo 11 space mission. He talked with his minister, Dean Woodruff of Webster Presbyterian Church in Houston. When in their discussions the Christian sacrament of communion was mentioned, a plan emerged.

Two Sundays before the moon shot, Aldrin participated in a small, private communion service at his congregation, after which his minister broke off a corner of the communion bread and gave it to Aldrin along with a tiny chalice with some wine. Aldrin sealed these in plastic packets and safely stowed them in his personal preference kit (each astronaut was allowed to take a few personal items with him).

July 20, 1969 was a Sunday. At 3:17 P.M. (Houston time) the Eagle touched down. Aldrin took out the communion elements from their flight packets and put them on a small table in front of the abort guidance system computer. Then he called Houston, and asked for a few moments of silence. In the 1/6th gravity of the moon, he poured the wine, watching it curl gracefully up the side of the chalice. From a slip of paper he read the passage, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5 RSV). And then he took communion.

So it was that the first food eaten by man on the moon was in the name of our Lord.

This event was also recorded in Time as shared by R.Digest 6/72 that Aldrin commented "It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements."

Acts 20:7 "And upon the 1st day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached to them there..."

"When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating every one taketh before the other..." (I Cor. 11:20,21) What we wish to emphasize is that they were doing the Lord's supper when then they regularly assembled. They were keeping the Lord's supper, although in a greatly degenerated fashion, every time that the church met.

Commenting on Acts 20:7 Albert Barnes (Presbyterian) notes "Evidently to celebrate the Lord's supper... It is probable that the apostles and early Christians celebrated the Lord's supper every Lord's day."

Adam Clarke (Methodist) states: "To break the Eucharist, as the Syriac has it: intimating by this that they were accustomed to receive the Holy Sacrament on each Lord's day.