In theological terms, there are topics that should be reserved to allow a reasonable place to the personal relationship the subject with his God. Measure the relativity of interpretations related by demonstrating self-modesty or indifference, As it can be ridiculous on these topics, buttress on a dogma that Christ would not have declared himself to mean.
This topic is not one of them and supports neither weak nor dialectical convolutions. It is not a topic that supports the confusion or approximation.
So I begin this reflection by the following assertion: As powerful as are the Christian denominations that perform differently than what I describe here. As old as they are of that fact. Be as appropriate as their current practices, by the requirement of modernity that dictates its rhythms and rituals with religious prescriptions they carve in stone their articles of associations, they do not dictate anything to God!
So, do they ever transform their lightness excuse before God they flout with contempt mean that their procrastination and lazy ignorance that is theirs on the meaning of the Supper instituted by Christ .
Christmas means nothing in terms of memorial instituted by Christ, is unlike the object of their attention. They prepare, meditate topic, time for the festive celebration called framed delicious light and frivolous. Long preparations, derisively and vanity are Christmas!
Sunday morning of the modern Christian is formatted in a timing cut with a scalpel in which neither the spirit nor the commandments of Christ have their place. Anyway God is supposed to accommodate the constraints of the pool Sunday afternnon, guests from worship and grill turkey already cooked in the oven which is scheduled to end at 12.25. Then they call in turn, the New International Version, King James, Jerusalem and many other versions of the Bible to justify, for the various translations of the holy text, the unjustifiable brevity of the Lord's Supper they practice. They read texts they can not hear! They speak of a God they do not know, they pray to Christ that they are not listening.
But it was already 11:45 ET every effort should be put away for lunch in their little boxes steel round and shiny chrome: bread like wine.
Looks like they read: " for I have received from the Lord what I taught you: that the Lord Jesus in the night he was betrayed prior cut bread into small squares of 5 mm each side, or failing a crumbled cracker , and gave thanks, took him and said: This is my body which is precut into small squares or crumbled for you nibble in remembrance of me. Similarly, without have already supper he took the glasses miniatures, and said: These mini glasses are the new covenant in my blood: this do in remembrance of me every time you inhale a few drops glued to the bottom mini glasses. For as often as you nibble these mini precut squares of bread or biscuit crumbs and you suck a few drops of grape juice , you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. " I Cor 11.23-26.
In this context, following the remarks of Christ, especially verses 33 and 34, appears so grotesque that there is no need to even comment.
Here are the texts ( especially those who are put in bold ) should go and read it carefully in the translation you want (it does not matter) to understand what I'll explain:
1 Corinthians 11. 17-34, Mt 26. 26-29; Mk 14. 22-25; Lk 22. 15-20; John 4.1-38; John 6. 24-40 ; Mt 14. 3-23 ; Ex 16; Mt 26. 26-29; Mk 22.22-25; Acts 2. 46-47, Acts 14. 22-25.
However, with all the severity possible with regard to these practices as insulting to the word of Christ, I will turn now to register for the presentation of the true Lord's Supper (I ) as it should be done and its meaning ( II) :
I- on how to take the Lord's Supper
The practice of early Christians leaves no doubt that Christ instituted ( A) nor indeed the precise information contained in its prescriptions taken over by Paul ( B).
A- The practice of early Christians
The Lord's Supper is a meal that unfolds in time (1 ° ) and houses (2 ° )
1) A meal that requires the flow of a time long
It Passover Christian symbolizing the passage from death to life, in which the Christian must consider the fact that he enjoys the grace of God which is the Spirit. It must ensure it holy by conduct worthy of the inheritance received in connection with the gift of Christ's brother. He who is heir to the promise made by God to Abraham and became operative by the sacrifice of Christ, he must walk his son to God and Father.
The Last Supper is the moment of remembrance and personal ordeal in communion with the brethren. Every man for himself, without falling under any sentence other than his own conscience (1 Cor 11.28) takes stock of his relationship with God and with his brothers. Thus probing in this moment of contemplation, if he finds him as the evil acts, or vis-à-vis a brother or vis-à-vis its neighbor, he humbles himself under the mighty hand of God not to escape the meal, as a recognition of the triumph of evil, but to ask for forgiveness and have lunch.
For that it takes time and not the urgency of making explicit these ridiculous amounts as practiced here and there. It while eating together, sharing their preparations as it is, that is to say at the table. In no case in operations punch than 5 minutes were believed to impose God out of inherited traditions of Roman Catholicism.
did Jesus broke with Jewish tradition on this subject ? No! He instituted the tradition from Hebrew to drive to us. He was able to separate, when it was under his control, which was incidental, in disregard of the consequences and blame we could do to him. For Passover, he separated himself from nothing. Instead he has confirmed (Mt 26. 26). He had prepared the Passover, giving precise details of the place and time. and during the meal he breaks the bread. Likewise, after supper , he took the cup ... (1 Cor 11.25).
Thus, during a real meal that the subject probe itself without haste and away from a house he occupies with his brothers.
2) A meal in homes
All texts indicate that the early Christians did not take the Lord's Supper in the temple of Jerusalem, although they were every day together, but in houses and over a meal: "... They were daily with frequent the temple, They broke bread in homes , did eat their meat with gladness and simplicity of heart ... "(Acts 2. 46).
Jesus does the same we have seen asking his disciples to go to such a person preparing food in conditions of Passover. So more than bread and wine that the disciples went to get starting in advance, but all the elements of a real meal prepared and eaten in the evening. (Mt 26. 20-25).
While it is clear that the bread and wine are the two key elements of the Passover instituted by Christ, Christians are wrong to neglect the other two elements that are invisible time and fellowship.
The Lord's Supper is a time set apart to experience oneself in his relationship with God and with others. It is not a formality quickly on Sunday morning between the search and ads. It is perfectly possible to distinguish two main phases which have two different meanings that are breaking bread and pouring wine from the cup. But it is not exclusive of other phases which constitute the integral frame.
Sometimes, in some churches, two things follow one another at such a rate that wine accompanies the bread if it does not, moreover, above certain rows in which those who have "drunk" do not know if he is still waiting for something breadcrumbs scattered across the plateau.
Holy Communion is shared the evening at dinner when the agitation the day has gone and that calm is installed. Work activities are completed. It's time for meditation it is urgent to discover or rediscover.
Over time, the fellowship is another key element of the Supper. It is the symbol of sharing and participation in the body of Christ. We shall see he did not die for one but for all and is at the Father's a hymn to holiness and recognition. In those churches where everyone believes to possess the gift of words and knowledge, erring themselves and lost the other by beautiful preaching, it would be good and healthy to rediscover these long moments of silence and meditation. Those moments where you think not what you might say to dazzle but where they are silent to hear the Spirit speaking to us from the evil we do and we do not want or property we could do but we do not do. Love that too often we express only with words or language and not in actions and in truth (1 John 3. 18).
B- The requirements of Christ and Paul
1) The preparation and having a meal
From reading the text of 1 Corinthians 11. 20-22, some thought they were allowed to limit the Supper, because of the abuse of other Christians, the bread and grape juice. Saying because it eats to excess and without expecting the meal and then delete because they were drunk then replace the wine with grape juice and why not by Coca-Cola in some churches. In short time and suppress the will to basics with the sharing of bread and wine.
However, analysis of the text of Paul shows that we must follow the opposite path. It highlights the two invisible elements which I noted earlier the importance: time and fellowship that are the foundation without which eating and drinking are ineffective or even dangerous.
reading the text we clearly see that the criticism of Paul is not about the fact that there is a meal, but about how to take it. It is noted that what he insists is the lack of thoughtfulness for each other. In sum, the lack of fellowship and the lack of observation time.
Paul criticized the haste in which some take their meals selfishly ignoring the most needy who are hungry at the same table. In this church the wealthy obviously sat together eating and drinking without regard to the other poor After the table had not only been able to get the wine difficult and expensive to maintain but also had no food to eat their fill.
The former are drunk when others are still hungry.
Paul will tell them to respect the time of the Last Supper (which we explain later). It will teach them not to go fast and stay in communion with each other throughout the meal (1 Cor 11. 33) respecting the time and how, without which the making of bread and wine are nothing :
First: Take the loaf (not precut)
Second step: Giving Thanks
Third time: break bread
Fourth time: share bread in remembrance of the dead Christ
Fifth time: Dinner together in discerning the body of Christ and is experienced yourself about it (1 Cor 11.25). Dinner is not abolished!
Sixth time: sure everyone has finished eating expecting each other before moving on to wine.
Seventh time: Take the cut
Eighth time: In giving meaning
Ninth Time: The share and experience oneself about it
tenth time: Fencing the Lord's Supper.
Rather than changing behavior unsuitable for making bread and wine finds meaning, modern Christians have removed which makes the force : Time and fellowship. It's almost as if to avoid having to suffer the reproach of selfishness to the next one avoid being in his presence with something that we could give it or having locked away from us.
2) Bread
is the symbol of the body Christ broken for us. It is responsible for our sins and bring them to our up to the cross.
Breaking bread at the Last Supper refers to three tears:
- The opening of the Jordan at the time of the exodus from Egypt by the Hebrew people freeing themselves from slavery.
- The veil of the temple that separated the Holy Place of the Most Holy Place where access was the high priest.
- Finally the body of Christ apart from God and abandoned
These three images are but one. They express the absolute fullness of the gift of Jesus fulfilling the will of God that frees man from the slavery of sin by giving it direct access to the Father. The passage of the Jordan to the Promised Land is a schoolmaster to bring us to understand the passage to God through the broken body of the son. The Jordan River which opens by showing the way to freedom is an allegory to reveal that Jesus is the way to God and to life: "I am the way, the truth and life. No one comes to the Father except through me "Jesus said.
3) wine (not grape juice or Coca-Cola)
Yes no offense to those who are Christ's specifications of voluntary requirements, grape juice does not intoxicate those who drink it, when the Coca-Cola ... that those who make them drink Supper remember that we do not laugh God with impunity.
The fruit of the vine whose effect on those who drank too was to make wine was very drunk and nothing else. Except to be in bad faith it is not useful to discuss further. Now, if someone has symptoms of diseases related to alcohol intake even in small amounts to be assigned grape juice, and that others do not make fun of God ...
Thus the Supper is not composed of two isolated elements but six key elements in question Now measure the meaning:
- to break bread
- Wine to share
- Supper shared
- time to distinguish
- The fellowship
- meditation or introspection
II- The Meaning of the Holy Supper
The Lord's Supper is to be achieved as much as possible outside the presence of non-believers, not to exclude but to respect them and because it means nothing to them (A ). It is contrary to the Christian a living sign of the prophecy announced, produced by faith, and which shall be revealed to men the day of the event of Christ (B ).
A- The Last Supper is not a sign for unbelievers but does not exclude them
When we see later the significance of Holy Communion for Christians, it will be easier to understand why, in contrast, it is for the unbeliever an act of barbarism. It is suitable only for the moment to add that this only applies to only part of the Last Supper.
Indeed, we must remember that Christ said: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall never hunger " (John 6. 35), before adding:" ... one who believes in me shall never thirst ".
So there is this sentence in the two phases of the approach of Christ
I just (1) and I think (2)!
These two phases alternately symbolize the bread and wine.
Christ gave his body for all men without exception and without meaning. He endured the punishment until the end, without complaint, until the break with his father until the separation. This phase is the completion of God's love in Jesus to men:
is the phase of bread!
Faced with this gift, everyone is free to accept or reject. Believe in God's only Son. This is the stage of love of man towards God. This is a phase of autonomy for which God decides nothing and he can do except to betray the very essence of his divinity. It is for everyone to freely decide whether to accept in conscience to love to turn the man who so loved. If he agrees to lose her life and be reborn to eternal life made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus.
is the phase of blood!
But here in this development is the first part of the sentence that concerns us: "... He that cometh to me shall never hunger. " The message could not be clearer. Whoever comes to me, he'll eat. Whether or not to accept my sacrifice, he believes or not that I am the Son of God is for him also that I am dead, my body has been delivered on the cross. And that does not depend on it but me. I am the bread of all. " No one comes to the Father except through me" ! It is a matter of divine importance that goes beyond human understanding and the will of men. It is the context of heavenly things that led to this outcome. There is no other food and it is the food of all.
This universality of the sacrifice of Jesus and the significance of the symbolism of bread is given by the text of the Gospel of Matthew in Chapter 14. 13-23:
It shows Christ at the time of distributing bread and fish to the crowd, doing exactly the same actions as those of Holy Communion for the part about the bread. At this potluck with the crowd but the wine is absent: " ... Looking up at the sky, he gave thanks. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples ... .. "(Mt 14. 19).
Many of those who are there nearly two thousand people are just out of curiosity. They want to see and hear that which everybody speaks and performs miracles. He speaks well and seems to have authority over demons. This is a subject of curiosity before being the object of their faith. But for all those people without distinction, the body of Jesus is nailed to the cross. The bread will be distributed to all!
B- The Last Supper is a sign for believers and what sign!
is the sign of the effectiveness of the sacrifice of Christ who gives eternal life by faith. Which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence from those who are invisible.
But if by faith we are saved, his demonstration indifferent to the non-believer who can access what is invisible. Holy Communion is thus the prophetic symbol par excellence of what we will be the advent of her Son of God. And the prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers (1 Cor 14. 22). Thus the realization of this may be a prophetic sign for non-believers see a sign of rejection of hostility-related misunderstanding. There is no need to provoke them by making a sign in front of them returning for them in a senseless act of barbarism since. So it's a gesture of love prevention against the neighbor, against what can only be understood from the outside, that early Christians took the Lord's Supper in homes and not to non-Christians and the temple.
Instead, the Lord's Supper is of particular importance for the born-again Christians who are to measure what has happened to their old nature. The former things have passed and their lives are hid with Christ in God (Rom 6.11). The promise is not misleading to the immediate realization of immortality by the purification obtained from the blood of Christ. No bearer can see God and live, but the new birth by the Spirit and the water makes the promise of immortality effective not only in hope but in reality the manifestation of hope in the eyes of those who believe. It is this passage from death to life that symbolizes the Last Supper. This is the greatest miracle of all: the ability to see God and live not only hope but a reality.
Yet, in principle, nobody can see God and live " The Lord said thou canst not see my face, for man can not see me and live " (Exodus 33 . 20). That's what Paul still called Saul, before his new birth, will learn to his cost (Acts 9. 1-9). Nevertheless, it is the most important of all miracles of Christ, the less visible but more powerful that we are witnessing the resurrection! And it also realizes that the last miracle before his return to his Father: men have seen God without dying! For the miracle of forgiveness of sins, eternal life that allows not only the future but this is far more important than cure, so that Christ is trying to convey to scribes (Mk 2. 1 -12).
Indeed, when the resurrected Christ, this is not the Son of Joseph out of tomb. Because the resurrected body is a glorified body. They buried a mortal body, it is raised immortal, disappears an animal body to give way to a celestial body. And this body is that of God in power and by adoption and delegation. It can also be seen of men if they are Christians, that is to say people who have inherited the power over death through Christ's blood. It is thus symptomatic that all the men I met Christ after his resurrection are Christians. It can not be otherwise.
is the miracle of eternal life, the triumphant crossing of death, as the impossible crossing the Jordan at the last moment before the sword of Pharaoh descend.
" O death where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting "? Paul will tell!
is what Jesus summed up this seemingly simple phrase: " ... Whoever believes in me shall never thirst" . (John 6. 35).
can understand, unless they make fun of God, that it deserves more than 5 minutes between the search and ads!
***
Thus, if the Lord's Supper is a commemoration collective, to be held in spanning time at a fixed meal and avoiding to offend non-believers, the decision to take or not take it up to each person "that each examine himself. " Nobody owns it to set itself up as a censor of his neighbor for just a celebration that marks a free pardon. There is no sin that can be transmitted through the sharing of bread and wine. " The soul who sins it shall die" . Holy Communion can never be a time for the trial the other, brother or neighbor. This should not and can not be at the celebration, a moment of exclusion. Its preparation requires attentiveness to the next, organization of time, and its celebration of meditation. All in the rejection of exclusion, in individual liberty, and love in any event!
That's what taking the Lord's Supper!
Question: If I am where they do not proceed and what should I do since it is 99% of cases?
Answer: I do not feel bound by anything! The first time I arrive in a new church, I share with them the Supper as a sign of communion, and I often refrain from celebrating this stands for nothing! I am sorry but the tip of the crumb of bread and three drops of grape juice that does not pass. The excuse of modern life that leaves no time to meet the scheduling of Christ that does not either!
Question: Still Is it a sin to take it well?
Answer : Anything that is not the fruit of faith is a sin! I can decide to share this moment with the brothers of snacking but I know this is not the Lord's Supper. In this case I does not sin. But if I take it because it looks at me while I do not inwardly I commit a sin
Question: If I share the Lord's Supper and I know that a brother has committed a sin do I let him take the Lord's Supper?
Answer: Who made me judge my brother? I did not feel my neighbor or my brother, but only myself, and that is if I come out unscathed from this introspection. (Rom 8. 1)
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