Hvala ti za krv!

Sharing the Lord's Supper

Thursday night our church gave a love feast, hosted by Pastor Sasa, who with his family prepared a beautiful meal (and an amazing homemade baklava that followed). We sat together around the decorous table, candles cheerfully burning as a centerpiece. Close friends and family talked and laughed and loved one another. What a wonderful scene.

Before we ate we shared in The Lord's Supper, served by the pastors: bread, broken and passed around the table, red wine served from a silver cup. As we shared, there was a sense of true thanksgiving for the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us. I can't remember such a joyful, jubilant sharing of communion. Gathering together to fellowship and feast and celebrate Christ's sacrifice in this way was a foretaste of Heaven and the marriage supper of the Lamb.

I loved the fact that as the bread and wine was passed out we talked and laughed together--we were not forgetting the seriousness of what we were doing, but we took genuine pleasure in it. While it is true that mere enjoyment is not the point of communion, I believe that the church today has forgotten the joy and beauty of celebrating. I am used to cracker pellets and lukewarm grape juice in plastic vials, administered in somber silence. Sobriety is important, as is reverence. But I then think of the first communion, and I wonder if the feast in the upper room was much more like this feast I shared with the Bosnians on Thursday night?

Anyway my prayer is that, in all times to come, I will be able to remember with genuine thankfulness and humility Christ's sacrifice, and that remembering the blood that was spilled for my salvation truly is a time for celebration!

Hvala ti za krv (thank You for the blood)!

"He brought me to his banqueting table, and his banner over me is love." (S.S. 2:4)