What is Different about this Particular Communion Sunday?

The Last Supper- John August Swanson

This Sunday we celebrate communion, along with thousands of churches around the world.  What is different about this particular Communion Sunday?  The first Sunday of October, each year, is World Communion Sunday.

World Communion Sunday began in 1933 in Pittsburgh, where as a way of unifying the Presbyterian churches in the city, they all celebrated communion on the first Sunday of October.  By 1940 it had spread to include all protestant churches world-wide!  As World War II raged around them, church leaders knew how important it was to unify the Christian church around the world.

The roots of communion are as deep as they are wide.  Paul references “the Lord’s Supper” in his first letter to the Corinthians, and The Acts of the Apostles also references it.  

The last supper, written about in the Gospel of Mark, is like the taproot of our current communion practice.  Even this practice reaches down through the ages - to Exodus, mentioning the Passover:

Mark 14. 12-26  MSG

On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the day they prepare the Passover sacrifice, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations so you can eat the Passover meal?”

 He directed two of his disciples, “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him. Ask the owner of whichever house  he enters, ‘The Teacher wants to know, Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare for us there.”

The disciples left, came to the city, found everything just as he had told them, and prepared the Passover meal.

After sunset he came with the Twelve. As they were at the supper table eating, Jesus said, “I have something hard but important to say to you: One of you is going to hand me over to the conspirators, one who at this moment is eating with me.”

Stunned, they started asking, one after another, “It isn’t me, is it?”

He said, “It’s one of the Twelve, one who eats with me out of the same bowl.”

In the course of their meal, having taken and blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them. Then he said, “Take, this is my body.”

Taking the chalice, he gave it to them, thanking God, and they all drank from it. He said, “This is my blood, God’s new covenant, poured out for many people. I’ll not be drinking wine again until the new day when I drink it in the kingdom of God.”

They sang a hymn and then went directly to Mount Olives.

I invite you to prepare for worship this week by praying for a church somewhere in this broken world.  Wars still rage.  Is the church you choose from your place of birth, from somewhere you lived for awhile, from somewhere in your community, from something you have read in the news?  Or somewhere else entirely?   I’d love to hear which church comes to your mind.

But there’s one other thing I remember,
    and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
    to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
    quietly hope for help from God.

• Lamentations 3