Celebration of a New Covenant

OK, there was an event recently that went by this name or something similar, but I'm speaking of the REAL thing!

Different church traditions call it different names with sometimes very different understandings of what is taking place. In my faith tradition, we usually call it The Lord's Supper, however, I like to call it a Celebration of Communion.

It is a time to celebrate what Christ has done for us and a time to enter into communion, fellowship, even theologically "koinonia" both with our fellow worshipers and with the spirit of Christ. As we gather around the table of the Lord, we recognize His presence among us (in my faith tradition, it is a memorial supper, not a sacrament or salvific experience in which Christ is present with the host - bread and wine/fruit of the vine - or the host becomes the very body and blood of Christ), remember the price that He paid for our salvation, and look forward to His return.

The event in itself is a portrayal of the first such occasion where Christ, Himself, took the bread and said, "This is my body broken for you," and then the cup saying, "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many."

Although we celebrate this several times during the year (some traditions more than others), there is that special celebration on the Thursday before Easter that is called Maundy Thursday. Our bulletin for that evening stated that "Maundy Thursday gets its name from the Latin phrase mandatum novum, which is translated "new commandment."

At First Baptist Church, Jefferson, GA we celebrated this last Maundy Thursday with a service of worship. Since we were not having a Good Friday service, ours took on the character of a combination Maundy Thursday/Good Friday service in which the outline was provided by a service of Tenebrae (or shadows) in which the light was gradually extinguished (as pointed out by someone else, the reverse of Advent where light is added each week). At the end of our service we proceeded silently to the cross in our church yard, where the purple draping was replaced by black.

Music was a factor in our service. We shared congregational singing together with "O How He Loves You and Me," a more recent chorus about God's love for us, "Hallelujah! What a Savior," an older hymn declaring the merits of our Lord, and the wonderful old hymn, "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded."

Additionally we had a soloist share with us a song she had recently sung in one our Sunday services, proclaiming the truth of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice in "The Day he Wore My Crown."

Of course, the choir had opportunity to sing, sharing with the congregation "And All the World Was Silent" by Charlotte Lee and Douglas E. Wagner in which the silence of sorrow was wonderfully expressed. They also sang, "Broken for You" by Steve Wilkinson and David T. Clydesdale a text that told again the story of that first communion. Finally, the choir presented (again) "Written in Red" by Gordon Jensen acknowledging the love that was shown to us on the cross of Calvary by our Lord.

It was a very fitting and moving celebration ... a celebration of Christ's new covenant with us.

Blessings,
Richard