Communion is a simple meal which Jesus introduced to the church on the night before His crucifixion. In it, we eat ordinary bread and drink ordinary juice, but we use them to point us by faith to the broken body and shed blood of Jesus on the cross – His death, through which those who believe in Him receive forgiveness of sin and eternal life.
Every week, usually immediately after the sermon finishes, we eat this meal together as a congregation.
We are served wafers of bread and cups of grape juice. We keep both of them so that we can eat and drink together, as directed by the one leading us in the celebration.
As we eat and drink, we look back, remembering the price of our salvation on the cross, we look inwardly to identify and confess any sin in our lives, we look forward to the time when we will sit with Jesus in glory and eat the wedding supper of the Lamb. We look around, realizing that although there are many believers in the congregation, if we know Jesus, we are united as one body in Him. Finally, we look outward, making a proclamation of the death of Jesus and its significance until He returns.
We eat this meal because Jesus commanded His disciples to do so in remembrance of Him. We also do it because in it we enjoy a spiritual communion with Him by faith, as we eat the symbols of His body and blood, given in our place to save us and purchase us for God’s own possession.
All those who know Jesus personally as Lord and Savior are welcome to join us in the meal, provided they are not habitually practicing sin they are unwilling to repent of and are not under discipline at another church, so that they could not eat the meal there.
Without saving faith in Christ, this meal can be of no benefit to us. In fact, if we don’t know Him and yet we eat a meal that says we are joined to Him and to other believers, we are not eating and drinking these holy things in a worthy manner, and may add to our condemnation before God. So if you don’t know Jesus, please let the bread and wine pass you by, but use the time to seek the Lord that you may come to know for yourself the benefits and blessings of the work of Christ that the meal tells us about.