Understanding Communion - Part 9

The Lord's Supper - The Proclamation

We tend flippantly use words like "celebrate" to describe our practice of Communion, but the reality is that Communion in most churches is a somber, repentant, time of self-evaluation and mournful remembrance.  That can hardly be described as a celebration in my book.  That limited approach does a disservice to Christ, the church and unbelieving observers.  Don't get me wrong, we do need to come to Communion with reverence and humility, but I think we need to remember the breadth of who Jesus is, what He accomplished and what we're worshiping him for.  We need to deal with our sin, yes, but we also need to joyously celebrate and proclaim the mighty deeds of our Lord before the church and the unbelieving world.             

I want to go back to 1 Corinthians 11:26 to conclude this series.  "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."  I want to make sure we don't miss the gravity of this verse.  So far we've focused on the meaning, the purpose and some of the how-to's of Communion, but there's still a big "what" we need to understand.  This verse clearly states we're to "proclaim" the Lord's death when we celebrate Communion.  Please don't miss this.  When we participate in Communion, Jesus' death (and by implication His life) is "proclaimed."  The gospel is at the very core of our celebration of Communion!  When we share in the worship of Communion with other believers, we're communing together in the gospel.  Similarly to when we were baptized, we're proclaiming our salvation for all to see, but it doesn't stop there.  We're also the proclaiming the totality of the gospel of Jesus Christ.