What Is Communion And Why Do We Do It?

The Eucharist is typically what those in the high church calls this meal. The word Eucharist is a derivative of a greek word found in our text today. The text says in verse 19 that after Jesus took the bread, he “gave thanks” and he broke it. The Greek word for giving thanks in this passage is eucharisteo and it means exactly that, to give thanks. 

So in one sense, this is a wonderful description of the Lord’s Supper. It’s a meal where we give thanks. It’s a meal of remembrance and of appreciation. Let’s look at these two ideas.

When I say a meal of remembrance, Jesus instructs his disciples during this meal to eat the bread in remembrance of me. Jesus was advising his disciples before his death of something that He wanted done after his death, even though they did not understand what was really happening at the time. This is a memorial meal. We eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Him. 

What are remembering exactly? We are remembering his death on a cross around 2000 years ago for the forgiveness of our sins. 

In other words, the death of Jesus on the cross, the shedding of his blood for the forgiveness of our sins is the thing that we are to remember and celebrate when we take the Lord’s Supper. This isn’t just a victory in a battle, it’s not just a miracle that God did at some point that we are celebrating, IT IS THE PRIMARY POINT IN CHRISTIANITY. This is what our faith is built on! 

The death of Jesus Christ which resulted in the forgiveness of our sins and his resurrection from the dead three days later, conquering death and bringing new life to everyone who believes in Him is the primary article of our faith. This is what we believe. If you are a Christian today, this is the number 1 tenet of our faith. We can disagree about a lot of different minor issues, but this is not just a primary issue, this is the primary issue. If you do not believe in Jesus or that he died on the cross or that he was raised from the dead, then you my friend may be a kind person and well liked, but you are not a Christian and you are headed to hell. 

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the determining marker of our faith. You must believe this if you want to inherit eternal life. If you want to be set free from demonic oppression, if you want to be healed from anxiety or depression, if you are wanting to be set free from addiction or if you desire to be rescued from hell and spend eternity with God the Father, this is what you must believe to do it. 

Without this, you are lost in your sins. You are dead in your trespasses. You have no forgiveness and you have no hope. This is the linchpin of our faith - that God took on the form of a human, lived a sinless life and was crucified on a cross. The blood that he shed was for your salvation. Do you believe that today? If you don’t, I pray that you will before you leave today. It’s that important. 

And that is the reason we celebrate this meal together. It is remembering the greatest thing to ever happen to us. It’s remembering that we are now free from sin and darkness and we have been adopted into the family of God through Jesus Christ. That’s why you will hear me call it a meal of celebration! This is something to get happy about! This is something to rejoice over! Jesus has set you free! Rejoice and be glad! He has purchased your salvation with his blood, shout it from the rooftops! You are redeemed by the blood of the lamb! Praise God!

This is why calling it the Eucharist is an apt name for the meal. It’s a meal of thanksgiving! We are to give thanks to the Lord for what he has done! He deserves our thankfulness and appreciation. This is meant to be a meal of profound gratitude because Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves! He saved us and set us free! Let’s be thankful for that. Let’s have a meal to celebrate. 

In fact, that was the pattern that we see in the early years of Christianity. This wasn’t celebrated in the same way do today. They celebrated it by having a full meal and that meal ended with what we call the eucharist today. The pinnacle of the meal was the breaking of bread and drinking of wine in celebration and thankfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The early church lived a simple life. They devoted themselves to teach and fellowship and to “the breaking of bread”, which I believe is the Lord’s Supper and to praying. If our church would grab ahold of this simple concept, I think it would change Clayton and Garner and Johnston County. I think its something worth praying into and believing for. I haven’t given up and I hope you will catch that vision too. 

The first word used to described the Lord’s Supper is Eucharist, the second is Communion. This is a word that we don’t get from our text today, but it is found in the Bible and it’s a powerful idea that is being presented by using this word, so let’s look at it as well. 

I mentioned earlier that one of the only other places that this meal is described or talked about in any way is found in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. In 1st Corinthians 10 and 11, Paul is dealing with an issue involving how different classes of people were celebrating the meal. Some were eating in excess while others were going hungry (presumably because they were very poor and couldn’t afford a celebratory meal every week). Some were getting drunk on the wine and some would eat before everyone even arrived. So Paul essentially chastises the church about how they were handling this meal in Chapter 11. 

But in chapter 10 before that, he is talking about food offered to idols and says that when food is offered to idols, it’s actually being offered to demons. Even though the idol is nothing but a piece of wood or metal, there is a power behind them, a demonic power and when you eat the food offered to the idols, you are essentially having fellowship with the demonic. 

Now this is tough for most of us to understand because we live in the 21st century and have such a natural mindset, but what he is saying is this, something spiritual is taking place by what you are doing in the natural. You may be just eating a piece of meat sacrificed to a piece of wood, but in the spiritual realm, there are ramifications to that. In other words, what happens in the Spiritual world can and does have consequences in the natural world. 

It’s in the midst of this explanation that he offers this statement to help the people understand the connection between the natural action and the spiritual connection to that action. 

Now, I bring all of this up, because this is where we get the word communion from. When Paul asks, whether the cup we bless is it not a participation in the blood of Christ and the bread, is it not a participation in the body of Christ, that word participation is where we get the word communion. 

The greek word that Paul uses here is Koinonia. This word means communion or fellowship. What it means is not just a surface level fellowship, but a deep intimate relationship. 

As Christians, we love the word fellowship, but in loving it, we’ve kind of destroyed its meaning. We say just hanging out and watching a sports game with our Christian friends is fellowship. And it could be, but truly this word here is talking about a deep fellowship, not a surface level one. This is the kind of deep connection that many of us long for and hopefully many of you have found through the people here in this church. 

If you take the word communion apart, you would get the word “common union”, signifying how deep and intimate this word actually is. You are participation or partnering with something. 

In the natural, you are eating a piece of bread and drinking from the cup, but in the spiritual you are communing with God.