'Twas the Day after Easter

'Twas the day after Easter and the plastic grass is semi-glued to the candy.  Halves of plastic eggs are lurking in the yard ready to pulverize bare feet and become shrapnel for the push mower. Tummy aches and leftover sugar highs are making parents more miserable than the kids.  Tiny suits and dresses hang in closest and photos are sent out to develop.

'Twas the day after Easter and millions of people brim with the joy of the Lord.  They rejoice in the love of Christ's sacrifice, they revel in the morning arrival at the tomb; they shout with the millions on high, "He is risen! Christ is risen indeed!"  But Monday has arrived.  Spring break is over and it's time to go back to work, back to school.  It's time to return to the mundane and leave our spiritual high behind. 

The earliest days of the church must have been like that.  This was the mountain top experience to beat them all. Not only had they just been baptized, just received the Holy Spirit, they had witnessed miracles and some of them had actually seen the resurrected Savior received back into heaven!  Imagine the spiritual joy.

But they had a Monday too.  They went back to their shops, their children. They paid merchants, wiped sticky faces, and rubbed aching backs.  So how did they maintain that spiritual energy?  What did they do when that momentous Passover and Pentecost were past? 

Their fellowship was central, as was prayer and learning, but notice the "breaking of bread?"  In the New Testament this is a common phrase that has two meanings.  Sometimes it means to simply eat together.  Bread was used at every meal as a kind of silverware.  So "breaking bread" came to stand for the whole meal. Sometimes, however, those meals became more than food and fellowship; they were communion. 

From house to house these Christians closest in time to the actual events were initiating a remembrance that stretches almost two millennia. It began the day that Jesus broke the bread and passed it to Peter and the others.  It spans the first Easter, the first communions, and the first Christians.  It echoes not weakly but with resounding power down to us.

Another name for Communion is the "Eucharist."  That word simply means thanksgiving.  And it reminds us that the Lord's Supper is the continuation of Easter's call.  His body was broken that we might become an unbroken body of believers.  His life's blood poured out for us has become life in us.

The Lord is risen, the new day has dawned.  A day when we don't celebrate our salvation once a year in Passover style but every week.  A day when we aren't separated by priests and law from our God, but where our merciful high priest has made us, every born-again person among us, priests of the Lord.  We are all God's royal children invited to His table to celebrate His victory. Communion reminds us that in this new age of the church, even amidst the mundane Mondays, we go on celebrating His death and resurrection until He comes!


Helene


PS-If you enjoyed this meditation on communion or the earlier one Twitchy and Giggles, I'd love to have you click the subscriber button above or just email me with the word "subscribe."  I'll send you a FREE PDF/Ebook with 12 Lord's Supper Devotionals. Each one will help you get your thoughts and minds ready for communion. They are short and perfect for enjoying with a cup of Sunday Morning cup of coffee. You'll also automatically be subscribed to our upcoming summer email devotional series on worship. 

PSS- I'd love to share another resource with you!  Here is my handsome husband talking about why Easter matters!