peace . love . joy

I've been wanting to post what is said during the Methodist Communion Service for some time now. Why? Because when we listen to the Pastor read the words, when we mumble what we're told to utter, when we listen to other people join their voices with ours, I feel there lacks a very important ingredient - comprehension.

I don't understand how we can go on like this, saying things we don't mean, saying things or doing them because that's what everyone else's doing, because that's what we're told to do. All performed without understanding the significance, the meaning. The meaning is what lifts a ritual and habit from the lower levels. It is what makes an act(s) mysterious and special and worthwhile.

Please don't think that I'd rather you not say or sing or do if you don't "get it". On the contrary, I'm urging you to think about the words coming out of your mouth as you say them. I'm urging you to think about why you're doing what you are doing.

And so I will post from today, through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, until Easter the words that are being verbalised before and during and after Holy Communion. All this so that you may have the opportunity and the chance to read through and understand.

I don't know what comes to your mind when someone mentions Jesus' earnest prayer in the Garden of Gethsamane, Jesus being interrogated and whipped, the long road up to Golgotha, the death of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection. I don't know what comes to your mind when you read the following words & posts over the next six days. My prayer is that whatever comes to your mind will be special to you; holding a special significance for you. My prayer is that God will bless you with renewed understanding of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, just as He is blessing me with.

Directions for singing:
VII. Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when He cometh in the clouds of heaven.
~ From John Wesley's Select Hymns, 1761 ("The United Methodist Hymnal", p. vii)

Read & digest, lovers of God.

Christ our Lord invites to His table all who love Him,
who earnestly repent of their sin
and seek to live in peace with one another.
Therefore, let us confess our sin before God and one another.