Bread and Wine - what's that about?

Shortly before He was crucified, Jesus sat down with His disciples for the Passover meal.  Passover was the biggest annual event in the Jewish calendar and celebrated the time when the then new nation of Israel came out of exile and captivity in Egypt, some 1450 years before!  At that time, God instructed the people, through a prophet called Moses, to paint blood on their doorposts to show that they were God’s people. This meant that they would not be harmed when God brought a heavy punishment on the nation of Egypt for making them slaves and refusing to let them go.  (If you want to do more reading about that, follow the story in the Old Testament books of Genesis and Exodus).

By the time of Jesus Christ, this was (and still is) the major event in the Jewish calendar and all true Jews would celebrate it together with family and friends.  It was at this feast that Jesus Himself initiated what is sometimes called “Holy Communion” (mostly in traditional churches); “Breaking of Bread”; “Sharing Bread and Wine” and various other names. 

During that final meal (often called “The Last Supper”), Jesus shared Bread and Wine with His disciples as part of the celebration meal. He also told them and us (future Christ followers) to do the same in His memory.  These few portions of the New Testament tell us in His own words – there are other passages that add detail to this.

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is my body.” And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many. I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.” (Mark 14:22-25 NLT)

and: 

When the time came, Jesus and the apostles sat down together at the table. Jesus said, “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.” He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you". (Luke 22:14-20 NLT) 

The act of taking communion / bread and wine has a very special significance for Christians.  During this act, we remember that Jesus chose to die so that mankind could be reconciled to God.  The bread represents His Body, that He gave for us, while the wine represents His blood, which He allowed to be shed for us.  It gets a bit complicated but, throughout the bible, blood represents the means of forgiveness and reconciliation between God and Mankind. 

The whole thing also represents unity between believers – although I will not always agree with everything they think, say or do, I will never deliberately do anything to hurt another believer because we are all one family – Christ’s family.

We are encouraged not to take it lightly.  This means that we should sort out any problems between ourselves and God (yes – even Christians do offend God sometimes and we have to apologise for it!); between ourselves and other believers (yes – believers do sometimes fall out!) and even between ourselves and our family.  If we are very negative about a situation and apparently cannot resolve it, then we should pray and even ask for help from church leaders to resolve it before taking bread and wine. The important thing is that we should do everything in love – the same love that Christ showed for us when He forgave us.

This does not mean that a young believer should not take bread and wine – in fact, I strongly recommend that they do.  We all have history, but God does not hold that against us.  When we accepted Christ as our leader, He accepted our past wrongdoings (also called sin) – both the deliberate ones and those which we did in ignorance.  He forgave us and His blood became the thing that made us right with God.

We do not usually use ‘real’ wine at Claremont – we use grape juice.  We do not have anything against alcohol itself and we know that Jesus drank wine regularly.  However, we have people in church who have, in the past, been addicted to alcohol and have been set free by Christ - and, sometimes, some who are still struggling with that.  We do not want to risk causing anyone any difficulties by giving them alcoholic wine, so we make that small change out of our love for people.