Daily lesson for April 2, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 16 and 17:

16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

Go sit down in the pews of almost any church sanctuary in America - whether great Gothic cathedral or plain, storefront church,  lift up your eyes toward the chancel or stage, and somewhere you'll see the communion table or altar (our forbears took the distinction between and altar and a table very seriously) and there in the oak or cedar or whatever other kind of wood you'll see the words carved bold and unchanged: "In Remembrance of Me".

In Latin to "rememor" means literally "to call to mind again" or "to again be mindful of". To remember is to retell or re-enact a story. To remember a story is to re-live that story.

Tonight Christians throughout the world will gather in their sanctuaries great and small and relive the story. At some point someone, usually a priest or pastor, will stand up and remember Christ's words. Taking and breaking bread, he or she will say, "This is my body broken for you." And then likewise taking a cup will say, "This is my blood shed for you." And in the remembering of Jesus' words and actions, the congregation will relive that last fateful night of Jesus' life yet once more.

Why do we do this?  Why do we remember? Paul says we remember that meal so that we ourselves can "participate" in it. Remembering allows for the condensing of all space and time so that we who were not there that last night are brought there by the power of memory. We become one with all Christians everywhere and throughout all time through the powerful act of remembering.

Tonight, whether beneath the great arches of some Gothic cathedral in France, or the fluorescent lights of a building originally designed to be a Kroger, we will all be one -- twelve followers of Jesus, mostly afraid, one blindly bold, and one with treachery in his heart, gathered around a plain, wooden table, watching Jesus' dark, veinular hands tremble as they take up the bread and pour out the wine. And we will all wonder who it is that might betray him. 

This is the power of reliving the story. Let us do this in remembrance of him.