Thursday night we went to church for a combination of a Maundy Thursday and Good Friday service. It's my favorite service of the whole year. It's quite bloody and sad, but the most real service I think you can attend.
We both walked away with a new sense of the reason for communion. Though I know what communion represents, it's a difficult thing to internalize when it's not Holy Week. When we first started attending this church, we both balked at the idea of communion every single week. It means taking off my coat. Getting up from my seat. Walking in front of people. Eating something that frankly leaves a less than desirable after taste.
But this time our pastor gave us the visual of Jesus ordering dinner at the Last Supper with sides of greed, selfishness, hate, laziness, indifference, jealousy, stubborness, pride, etc. Because he was strong enough to take it on. And in return, he gave us grace in the form of his body. And all he asks is for us to eat it.
So my new challenge is that everytime I have to leave my seat for communion to eat the just-OK-tasting bread is to remember that my stubborness, pride, procrastination, PMS-induced irritability and anger taste a whole lot worse. And because of a painful sacrifice, it's now the best tasting bread and grape juice ever made.
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