Even though communion is a regular part of every worship service, I’m not sure we fully understand why we take communion. We just know we’re supposed to pass a tray of Welch’s around and stare at the floor in silence to please God.  Communion is often taken in a somber mood of dismal introspection as we focus on the death of Christ.  

But are we missing something when we observe communion?  We’ll be talking about that in more detail on Sunday, but until then I want to provide you with a couple of observations regarding communion that you might not have thought about before.   First of all, I suggest that communion is not so much a time of individual contemplation as it is a corporate expression of unity.  And second, the proper context of communion may be one not of mourning but of celebration.  Let’s look at each of these expressions in more detail.

The Mode—Corporate vs. Individual

When we partake of communion we’re showing that we’re all in this together.  We all worship Jesus together.  We all acknowledge we’re sinners together. When we take communion we’re saying something together. We are equal before God – equally sinful, equally loved – and we are together, not divided.  Communion draws us together.

Typically when we take communion, we are served individual morsels of bread and individual cups of juice.  Of course we want to take health precautions, but when the church opted for individual servings over a common loaf and a common cup, we lost something.  We dropped a demonstration of community in favor of an expression of individualism.

The Mood—Celebratory vs. Somber

Sure, communion is about remembering that Jesus gave his body and shed his blood for our sakes.  But could the proper context be one of celebration and not of mourning?  In the early church, the believers took communion together at the conclusion of a shared meal.  We read in Acts that the first Christians "broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts" (Acts 2:46). 

We take communion because we want to remember what the Lord has done for us.  But may we not forget that in giving his body and his blood, Jesus forges us into a unified body of believers.  And that’s something to celebrate!