This is in contrast to the scene which usually accompanies the Eucharist feast in too many protestant churches. So often the celebration of the Lord's Supper takes on a maudlin, rather than joyous, character. The music will be somber. No one will smile. Voices are muted.
Indeed, this is the memorial feast where we proclaim the death of Jesus until he comes again (1 Corinthians 11:25-26). But the feast has with it a cosmic sense of time. By participating with Christ through the common loaf and cup, we not only join ourselves with Jesus and the twelve in the Upper Room, but we feast with the certain hope of the divine banquet of the Kingdom of God. That fact should cause many smiles to be seen amidst the sharing of the elements.
Interesting, isn't it, that these smiles jump out after having deliberately gone hungry? There is genuine thanksgiving here, a thanksgiving so profound and yet so often taken for granted in an affluent culture, with Whataburger's at every exit.
"The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor 10:16-17 NRSV)
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