So recently I had a profound conversation with my five year old about Jesus. Once again the curse of being a PK (pastor kid, in her case pastors kid) she is forced to attend lots of religious days at church that don't always have childcare, so there she was on Good Friday listening to the passion story being read. She had some profound thoughts on it...
1. Some very bad people wanted to put Jesus to death on a cross. And so they did. It wasn't very nice of them and the crowd yelled for his death. But then a guy stab Jesus and blood and juice, which they call wine, came out.
2. We eat Jesus bones on communion Sundays. When I suggested that the juice and bread are suppose to make us remember Jesus and his death she proclaimed "Yes but you say "this is..."" so I guess she got me there.
Back to communion. I have written about communion before and the profound meaning. I am always amazed at the power of communion. I am awestruck each Sunday when I offer communion at the nursing home to people who have forgotten so much and yet the act of communion breaks through the fog of dementia and transforms that moment into something they know. I have witnessed as a someone simply held communion for they no longer could eat and watched as the power of God in their hands gave them strength and comfort. I have listened as person upon person has expressed the power of sitting in a pew, consuming communion and feeling connected to all those who come before and will come after. Communion is powerful. Communion is a sacrament for in this moment we are connected, for real, with God. God is in communion. In most churches, an Ordained person has the right and ability to offer communion - to invoke and invite the Holy and Divine presence into the moment. For most Protestants we have only 2 sacraments, Communion and Baptism. What makes them sacred is our acknowledgment of the Holy grandness that embodies the elements - water, bread and wine (or juice).
And so, back to my conversation with my daughter. Here we are in the car talking about blood, juice, bones and bread. She clearly marked the idea that the wine is from the blood of Christ's womb, collected in a cup. And she won't let me get off the hook of the words she hears each communion Sunday "this is my body broken for you" and "this is the cup of the new covenant, Christ blood shed for you." And here she is trying to figure this out. Jesus said, come to me as little children not because of how little their faith is but because of how profound there faith can be. Children aren't afraid to ask questions, aren't afraid to explore their faith and most importantly are trying to reconcile the faith the feel and the religion they see. When we don't let children or ourselves explore or examine these questions and feelings we do God and our church a huge injustice.
As we explored Jesus death and thus the gift of love and grace and of course the one day inherited kingdom. She asked why we don't celebrate communion every Sunday. I reminded her that I do, where I work/ celebrate church but that Daddy's church serves only once a month. She asked why we all wait and eat the bread and drink the juice together. She explored what it means to feel Jesus. I told her that when we share in communion we invite Jesus to be with us and in those moments Jesus is. She asked "Isn't Jesus in my heart always?" Of course! How simple it truly is!
We celebrate communion to be in community with each other and Christ. We celebrate to be in real presence of our Savior who suffered death on the cross. Holy week is a week full of scary and bad things. Full of bad people and death. Full of anger and evil. Holy week should besides making us sad, scare us all into realizing the true evils that mankind is capable of. It reminds us that the ideas of a few can play out into allowing for evil to sweep into the majority.
But it should also remind us that despite the evils and the bad things happening Jesus' teaching and miracles remained. Jesus' didn't change that week. Jesus taught told his disciples this would happen. Jesus washed their feet and told them he came to serve. Jesus while dying on the cross shed blood and water. Jesus wasn't in the tomb for he defeated death and ascended to heaven.
Through communion we are nourished in our faith. We are brought into community with Christ and every Christian of time and place. It is this sacred nourishment that feeds us and our Spirit so that Jesus is always in our hearts. It is this moment each week, each month, whenever possible that connects us with the greater Divine and fill us. However we experience communion as we literally or symbolically eat the bread and wine we are reminded of the blood shed and the body broken so that we might be offered new life. We are assured that our sins are forgiven and that in Jesus there is new light. Each time we take the elements we are offered a greater relationship with the Divine.
Despite the laugh that might come when we heard her words about Jesus bones or the juice. Communion is a truly divine and special moment. It is not to be taken lightly. Her concerns and her thoughts were coming from her heart and the next time she accepts communion, she will do so knowing she is filling up on Jesus.
