commun-ity

I went to a church yesterday, and we had communion. It may have been the first time that I’ve participated in communion since being home (nope – second because we had it at camp. But it was the first time in a church). As I watched people go up to the front of the church to get Jesus’ symbolized life and death - people with whom I have no shared past or present - I realized that we share in the same future. Maybe it’s one of those things that seems more profound at the time, but it was a really beautiful realization of the unification of communion (commun-ity; what we have in comm’un ). And as I watched a young dad with a very sick baby scheduled for heart surgery and older people walk painfully to get the elements, I saw people who are sharing in suffering with Christ and holding on to hope in his resurrection. The song How Deep the Father’s Love for Us was playing; a song that was quite significant to me my freshman year at PSU when I began to understand more about his love and grace. Sitting there watching people I’ve never met before “doing this in remembrance,” going down memory lane of Christ’s faithfulness to me over the last 8 years, and thinking about our shared future was quite – and unexpectedly - moving.

I sat down half an hour ago with my plate full of triscuits with tuna salad to read an article about the Hebraic covenant model. I thought that the tuna would get me through, but it was really a beautiful and enlightening read. The whole idea behind the article was to articulate the cultural context of covenant and, therefore, what “new covenant” meant to the disciples (and now us). So it’s been something of a communion long weekend – and a good one at that.