Oct. 6, was World Communion Sunday. That observance got started by a Presbyterian Church in 1933 to promote a sense of Christian unity. As Christians know, communion is an observance of the Christian church that comes out of the Jewish Passover, the Jewish annual celebration of deliverance centuries ago from oppression in Egypt. This observance acquired new meaning from the Last Supper that Jesus celebrated with his disciples just before his passion.
Communion gained important additional meaning from meals Jesus had with his disciples after the resurrection. In fact, communion in the early church was anticipation of the future messianic feast, not just remembrance of the crucifixion. Its primary mood was therefore not sadness but joy. Too few Christians think about that when they come to communion. The prevailing mood at too many communion observances is somber rather than joyful.
THE LAST SUPPER was a full meal. Artists have usually portrayed it thus, although they have shown Jesus and his disciples artificially seated on only one side of a long table to be able to show the faces of all twelve disciples.
In the early church the Lord’s Supper continued to be a full meal, very possibly because early churches met in homes, which had their facilities for serving food. My understanding is that in those churches the Lord’s Supper carried strong similarities to today’s carry-in meals, although provision was made, of course, for the bread and wine.
How did it get abbreviated to the token eating and drinking in most Christian churches today?
THE ABBREVIATION seems to have come with the construction of large basilicas and cathedrals by Emperor Constantine. He not only brought an end to persecution of Christians by his edict of toleration in the year 313 but then went on to make Christianity the favored religion of his empire, providing state funds for the erection of many Christian houses of worship such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. That church still exudes some of its original grandeur, even though it is today only about half of its original length and height, thanks to an attempt by a Muslim Caliph to destroy it in the year 1009.
The basilicas did not provide facilities for serving food or tables at which people could eat. And so began the long history of the church’s practice of cafeteria-line serving of a token meal. Maybe that’s why many churches ceased to call it the Lord’s Supper and began to call it the Mass or Eucharist.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH held for some centuries that a transubstantiation occurred at the consecration of the bread and wine — that these really turned into the body and blood of Christ.
On their part, high church Protestants have argued that there is a “real presence” of Christ in the bread and cup.
Nobody seems to be asking whether the Lord’s Supper is supposed to be a “real supper” where “real communion” takes place. Actually it ceased to be a real communion when people started standing in line on their way to the altar or sitting in silence with their backs to each other if served in their pews, in neither case engaged in actual communion, edifying conversation, fellowship.
FOUNDED IN the early 1700s, the Church of the Brethren reinstituted a full meal Lord’s Supper. Since then Presbyterian theologian Arthur Cochrane has authored an important book arguing for it also. Even some evangelicals have spoken their longing for the restoration of a true Lord’s Supper.
Maybe another Catholic Church Council or Protestant Reformation may yet restore a real Lord’s Supper.
Marlin Jeschke is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at Goshen College. In 1968-69 he received a Fellowship in Asian Religions, spending five months at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and five months traveling in Muslim countries of the Middle East and Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia. His “The American Religious Landscape” broadcast can be heard every Sunday at noon on FM 91.1.
'; var element = document.getElementById("sub_message"); element.appendChild(subMessage); console.log("Code Loaded!"); } else { var subMessage = document.createElement('div'); subMessage.id = 'sub-message-top'; subMessage.class = 'panel panel-default'; subMessage.style.backgroundColor = '#eee'; subMessage.style.borderRadius = '5px'; subMessage.style.padding = '10px'; subMessage.style.marginTop = '25px'; subMessage.style.marginBottom = '25px'; subMessage.innerHTML = '
Support local journalism.
Subscribe Today'; var element = document.getElementById("sub_message"); element.appendChild(subMessage); console.log("Code Loaded!"); }}
