the story behind our communion

Last Sunday, which began the week of the Jewish holiday, Passover, we got to hear a great message from a Messianic Jew (a man of Jewish heritage who has accepted Jesus as the Messiah) regarding the history of Passover. As a "gentile" - i.e. non-Jewish person, I have never given much thought to the Jewish holidays, but as I listened to His accounts of his people's history, I felt that it added a new spark and dimension of understanding to my own Christian roots, beliefs and traditions.

The passover meal includes multiple dishes and cups, each part of which is eaten or drank to remind the Jews of their slavery in Egypt and their miraculous salvation from that bondage. For example, one of  the dishes included in passover are bitter herbs (usually horseradish) which when eaten bring tears to ones eyes and is to serve as a reminder of the tears shed during their bondage; there is another green (usually parsley) that is dipped in salt water, the salt water, once again reminding them of the tears and sweat shed during the enslavement. It really was a fascinating history and story, which I could not possibly repeat it in its entirety and do it justice (and so I would encourage you to consider reading up on it yourself...).

The one part that intrigued me most, and I admit brought tears to my eyes was what I really want to share...

There is this unleavened bread called "matzoh" that is included in the seder. The bread is divided into three pieces and stacked in a covering that is called the unity. No one seems to know why they divide it into three pieces. Some say it represents the three classes of people in ancient Israel: the priests, levites, and Israelites. Another tradition is that it is to symbolize the patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These perhaps are the two most common, although there are at least two more theories as to what reason this tradition was started.

What happens with the matzoh is this:

For some reason (unclear to the Jewish people today), the tradition with the matzoh is for the middle piece of unleavened (meaning without yeast -  which represents contamination (i.e. sin)) bread ( and which in its baking is striped and pierced) bread to be broken and removed from the pouch in which the three pieces are encompassed (known as the unity). It is wrapped in linen cloth and buried and hidden somewhere in the house. This middle piece is known (by itself) as the "Afikomen", meaning "that which comes later", and some believe it is a derivitive of the Greek word "aphikomenos" - which means "the one who has arrived". After the meal, the children at the Passover seder go in search of the Afikomen and when found it is shared with the table as the "dessert" bread.

So if it represents the patriarchs, why is Isaac taken, broken, buried, and found? If it represents the classes of ancient Israel, why are the Levites taken, broken, buried, and found? Believers in Jesus as the Messiah can see that He explains the mystery of the Matzoh at the last supper with His disciples. The unity symbolizes the unique unity of the trinity, and the three pieces of bread within the unity represent the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit... and the Son is broken, wrapped in linens, buried, and later resurrected. As a matter of fact, it is this bread that Jesus said represented Him. "This is my body which was broken for you..."

There are four cups that are drank from during the seder. Two before the meal, and two at the end of the meal. The four cups represent the four "I will's" that God promised in Exodus 6:6-7. The first cup represents sanctification ("I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians"). The second represents the plagues/judgement ("I will rid you of their bondage"). The third represents redemption ("I will redeem you with an outstretched arm"), and the fourth represents praise ("I will take you as my own people").

It is the third cup which comes after the Afikomen is eaten. It is the third cup, the cup of redemption, which was to represent the hope of God's redemption from slavery. It was this cup that Jesus lifted saying, "This is my blood, which is shed for you."

Understanding the MEANING behind these pieces of the passover meal make Jesus definition of them being His "body" and His "blood" so much more powerful, and thus helps me to value the act of communion more than I ever have before.

Even the timing of Jesus' death - the weekend of the Passover celebration, with Passover being the time of year that the Jews made sacrifices for the atonement of their sins - was a perfect representation of what His sacrifice was to mean. That He was the ultimate sacrifice. That his blood offers us redemption and salvation.

I know that my friends reading this blog are mostly all Christian, and so perhaps none of this is new to you, but being that today IS Easter - the day by which everything else in Christianity revolves around - I thought it was an important topic to address, and perhaps it is as informative and inspiring to you as it was me.

I'll finish with one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis. It kind of sums up my understanding of Jesus and his resurrection...  and how we must view it.  Happy Easter!

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - CS Lewis










  

In my next ten years

Tim McGraw has a song called, "In my next 30 years". In it, he outlines things he'll do differently in his next thirty years, as opposed to his first thirty. It was used for one of my high school graduation photo slideshows (which I have a copy of on a VHS stuffed in a storage box of preserved memories). The song always made me a little sad as it sort of emphasized the regrets of the last 30 years and the hopes of the next thirty.

And then it occurred to me this morning that it has been TEN YEARS since my amazing, awesome, life-changing, adventurous semester abroad in Spain!

TEN YEARS. I just can't get over it. And I find myself being such an "OLD" person by genuinely asking myself, "Where did the time go??!". (Because only people who have enough of a past in years can really understand the concept of that question.)

I mean, I know during those ten years I: graduated from college, got my first nursing jobs, got married, moved to Maine, completed grad school, got my first anesthesia job, moved to Texas, and traveled extensively... but despite all of that, it's hard to believe that such a significant event was ten years ago. In some ways it seems that certain events and certain phases of life will last forever. They're too big, too important, too momentous to move past. Sometimes it just seems that the moment we live in (whether it is good or bad) will simply last forever.

And yet here I am with my sophomore year of college 10 years in the rearview mirror. Nineteen. I don't feel all that much older or different than I did at 19, but at nineteen, I would have thought 29 and quickly approaching 30 was a bit old... just as I currently think that 39 and quickly approaching 40 sounds kind of old (for me!) right now.

As I reflected this morning over the last ten years, I found that I can say I am pleased with how I spent them... I feel that I enjoyed my time thoroughly and that I relatively crammed the years full of life. And since staying 19 forever was never an option, I feel like what I did was the next best option and that these last ten years have actually been a wonderful ten years of getting older.

I think that the reason I am overall pleased with my last ten years is because (I believe) I have lived intentionally. I have set and completed goals. And thinking about this has kind of inspired me to make sure I do the same with my next ten years. For the most part, it was rather easy to live intentionally during these past ten, as I was making big life/career decisions. I was still in the "planning" phase of my life... planning what I wanted to be... who I wanted to be "it" with... but now it seems it would be really easy to fall into a "rut" of just being... with a lot of my biggest decisions behind me, I think I could easily pass the next ten years without as much thought or attention. And then I'd REALLY be wondering, "WHERE DID THE TIME GO?!" ten years from now...

You won't always be in college. You won't always be a newlywed. You won't always be single. You won't always have small children. You won't always be where you are now. Maybe the best way to live "intentionally" is to simply live in the present. When I was in Spain I spent a lot of time talking about two different boys... which one did I love... which one loved me... and who would I end up marrying. Funny because it seems that all of my worries were sort of pointless, as it eventually just worked itself out in time. And now, here I am looking BACK on those memories, married for over six years...

For the most part, I think I lived "intentionally" and "in the present" during that phase of life... but how easy and tempting it was to get caught up in planning for the someday when I was grown up and married, rather than focusing on the adventure of my present circumstance of being 19 and living in Spain? Boys and marriage should have consumed a little less of my thoughts and worries. And so I want to learn from this memory. I don't want to find myself always worrying about my future... missing out on the right now. I've seen that the future usually just has a way of working itself out, so there really is no reason to worry about it at all... as a line from a favorite song says, "worrying is as about as good as trying to solve an algebra problem by chewing bubblegum".

So I choose to be present. I choose to live intentionally. I choose to continue to have and set goals. I choose to enjoy the process and journey of time accomplishing said goals. I choose to enjoy the life I have been given. And I choose to be youthful even though I can't stop the aging.

Where will I be in ten years? Only God knows. But I hope to make them count.