Which is it?
My dear husband who was a Bible teacher, pondered communion and said, “Jesus said ‘as oft and you do this, do this in remembrance of me’. What did he mean by this? I think he meant Passover, which is once a year.”
From the last Passover meal Jesus held with the disciples, Christianity has extracted Communion. Church denominations, church congregations, have pondered this very question throughout the ages. Most practicing Catholics participate weekly, I think. My church — monthly. Scarcely any Gentile congregation participates only once a year, as far as I know, though Jewish people remember the Passover yearly. What of Messianic festivities? We don’t have an answer with all in agreement. But it is that season now, so …
I will attend a low key Good Friday service in my local parish church. I will attend a Passover Meal in my personal congregation. I will go to church on Easter Day (though I prefer to call it Resurrection Day as the connotations of Easter aren’t very Bible-based — carrying pagan roots… and bunnies!). I am no more holy because of my actions or choices, nor is anyone who attends a particular service. This is because it isn’t what we do that ultimately matters, but what is in our hearts.
I will sit and watch a movie with my son about the last days of Jesus before his arrest and crucifixion. We will watch it because I need to invest in my son’s spiritual future, and the season suggests to me, it is a good time to watch this particular film.
I am doing what I feel led to do. Is this out of habit, or preference, fear, or love? It is all done out of love.
From Matthew 6:25 and onwards, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? …”
Jesus asks us not to be worried… not about anything.
Instead, He says, “be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
From Paul, “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17)
Does this not pertain to our recognition of days, titles of days, and activities on those days today?
We can’t ‘get it right’
When we surrender to GOD, and we walk in the Spirit, we will be perfected. As long as we continue to try to get it all right, we are walking in religion and in the flesh, and attempting to be perfected in our own strength.
As we seek to adore and cherish GOD: Father, Son and Spirit, we will find that our flesh is stripped away and we simply come to Him with our hearts, by His Spirit.
The LORD looks at the heart. We look to Him for our leadership and our spiritual protection. Let us aim to follow and not aim to get things right. Then, I think we will have true communion with Him.