January 25 The Next Generation

Genesis 12:26-27 And when your children ask you, "What does this ceremony mean to you?" then tell them, "It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians."

Sometimes I wonder how God does it, but it does affirm my belief in the sovereignty and omnipotence of God - the way he times things in my life, connecting the human and the divine sides.

A couple of days ago I talked with someone who had visited a Catholic church and watched the communion service. He noted that there was a solemnity about it all, a serious awareness on the faces of the participants, some even approaching the elements with tears in their eyes. Now he had no idea if why they had tears in their eyes, whether it was because they were truly participating in a memorial service of the death and resurrection of Christ, the cost at which they can anticipate eternal life, or whether it was a reminder of their own rescue, their redemption from a life of sin or fear. We don't know any of those things.

But it made an impact on him. He said he had never seen that kind of seriousness in his experiences of communion outside of the Catholic Church. I didn't ask him if he was comparing what he saw among his peers. Nor did I ask him if he had any idea of what the others in his church(es) were thinking as they participated in communion....my tendency to get defensive.

Then this was the topic of today's reading and meditation. OK God, What's going on here? Oh, and our church has announced Communion Service for this next week - an announcement to call us to consider personally our participation, readying ourselves for it.

I do not believe in coincidences; I believe God is intentional and purposeful. Was all of this thinking about communion and memorializing the works of God a call to something, even a personal call - perhaps. I remember being fearful during communion - fearful that I would take communion with unconfessed sin and thus draw God's judgment.

I am no longer fearful of that - God's immediate judgment because I missed confessing some sin, but I am mindful of my sin, of what I have allowed to separate me from God and from any one of God's people. And maybe the communion service should do that - after all the word is communion- community - a memorial to refresh that in our minds, that the cross and resurrection not only made community with God possible but also that we have been invited into community with each other.

A couple weeks ago our pastor used a clump of dirt dropped into a jar of pure water to illustrate the power of even a little dirt, a little sin. I wonder if it is all coming together now- even a little disruption in relationship within the body sullies it all.
This entry seems kind of rambling, but it is moving me toward action, and I guess that is always what should happen when we read and think about the Word.