11.30.07
the Lord’s table
What does it mean to be invited to this table? It means one hell of a lot more than sitting in neat rows and sharing cracker crumbs. Just how far have we gotten this wrong? We no longer perceive the radical revolution hidden in the bread and the wine. This article from Christ is All is one of the better ones that places the table in historical and cultural context.
“When my family first went to live in the tiny little country of Tajikistan as missionaries in 2000, we were soon offered the delight of eating a meal with a local Tajik family. What we witnessed that day changed our lives forever.
“As we sat on the floor on a beautiful rug we, waiting for a huge meal, the man of the family took a loaf of flat bread and broke it and passed it around to each of us sitting there! It was his way of welcoming us to his house and his way of expressing that he will provide for us. Anything that he could offer was ours!
“I immediately said to myself, “This is what Jesus did! Yet I am experiencing it first hand in a Muslim home completely cut off from the Gospel.”
“When the head of the house broke bread and humbly passed it around to each of us , I thought this must be a small ritual that dates back 1000′s of years.”
See also Christ Our Passover..Â
Peggy said,
November 30, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Powerful article…important corrective…covenant renewal ceremony…can it be sooner than later?
brad brisco said,
December 2, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Very good article!
Yesterday I posted an excerpt from the conclusion of chapter 10 of Donald Miller’s “Search for God Knows What” when he says:
“How odd would it seem to have been one of the members of the early church, shepherded by Paul or Peter, and to come forward a thousand years to see people standing in line or sitting quietly in a large building that looked like a schoolroom or movie theater, to take Communion.
How different it would seem from the way they did it, sitting around somebody’s living room table, grabbing a hunk of bread and holding their own glass of wine, exchanging stories about Christ, perhaps laughing, perhaps crying, consoling each other, telling one another that the Person who had exploded into their hearts was indeed the Son of God, their Bridegroom, come to tell them who they were, come to mend the broken relationships, come to marry them in a spiritual union more beautiful, more intimate than anything they could know on earth.”