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I am a Christian, I am an Orthodox Christian. I am a husband and a Father of 3. I am a working man and enjoy reading, writing, singing, playing music, woodworking, and being with close friends and family and sharing my faith with anyone who will listen.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

A Miracle Every Sunday

Do you experience miracles? I do, every Sunday.

Forgive me, but I can only talk about things from the perspective of what I have experienced and learned. I have an enormous respect for the Christian tradition from which I come from, namely, the church of Christ. One of the most cherished tradition in the church of Christ was the centrality of the Lord's Supper in worship. This is because it is a central message in the New Testament, in all four of the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles of St. Paul. If there is one thing you pick up in the New Testament, it is that the Lord's Supper was significant and that the followers of Jesus partook of the Lord's Supper at least every Sunday (the Lord's Day) when they gathered.

The church of Christ made it clear in my mind that there is something significant to this institution of our Lord, but it was never made clear to me why, except that it is commanded in the Bible. I remember being taught that it is just a memorial and our Lord's Supper table made this clear by having the words inscribed on it "Do this in remembrance of me" with the emphasis on remembrance. To the church of Christ, it was a memorial as we would have a memorial for a fallen soldier, only more emphasized because it was done every Sunday. The Lord's Supper generally occurred in the middle of the worship service and started out with men going to the front and one of the men reading the Scripture (pertinent to the Lord's Supper) and saying spontaneous prayer before the dispersion of the emblems. Once that was done the men would take the plates of tiny cups of grape juice and plates of broken up matzah crackers and passed it around to everyone sitting in the congregation. Sometimes a song would be sung, sometimes silence, but it was always somber.

I remember thinking as a young Christian, who had been in seminary and had been taught that the Lord's Supper had been something different to various Christian groups through the centuries, that it had to be something more than just a memorial. Catholics believed in the literal Body and Blood of Christ known as "Transubstantiation" and the Lutherans believed that the presents of Christ was "with" the elements, "Consubstantiation". And others, such as our church, a memorial only. I also remember St. Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 11 about partaking in the Body and the Blood in an unworthy manner and how this was causing some to "fall asleep". No, to me, I knew it was more. Fear would come over me as the plate was passed my way and I was never really certain that I was taking the emblems in a worthy manner, because (as I was taught), taking the emblems in an unworthy manner was related to my moral standing. I was never worthy, so I should never take the emblems. But I also remember thinking, "if it is just a memorial, why does it matter how I take it?"

Fast forward several years, to the years I was studying Orthodoxy and reading the Church Fathers. To the first and second century Church Fathers, it was always understood that the Lord's Supper (Eucharist) was the actual Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, even the first and second century pagans called the Christians cannibals because they spoke of eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus. It has always been understood as Jesus stated it: "This is my Body..." and "this is my blood" and:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”
When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more."
(John 6:53-66)
 
Clearly, from the writing of the New Testament until today, there have been Christians that have taught and affirmed the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

 
When I was a catechumen in the Orthodox Church, we spent that year not taking the Eucharist, as is the custom of catechumens in the Orthodox Church. This was hard since I had partaken what I thought was the Eucharist for my whole adult Christian life, every Sunday. But that year was a year to contemplate what the Eucharist really was, the True Body and Blood of Christ. The Orthodox do not take this lightly.
 
There is no open communion in the Orthodox. If a church goer from the outside comes in to our parish and does not believe it is the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, it could be potentially deadly for them as St. Paul points out:
 
Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
(1 Corinthians 11:27-30 - my emphasis added)
 
It is not closed communion because we are saying "you are out and we are in". It is to protect the one who is taking the very Fire from Heaven that can either cleanse or destroy.
 
After a full year of not taking the Eucharist and it was my first time to approach the Body and Blood(on my Chrismation date), it occurred to me that I have really never received the Body and Blood of Christ. I knew this because, it is in the Divine Liturgy that the priest calls down the Holy Spirit upon the "gifts" and ask to make the bread and the wine the precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, at which the faithful say "Amen!". This had never been done at any Lord's Supper I had been at in previous churches and is something that goes back to 1st century of the Church. So I stood in line waiting to receive the Eucharist, my arms crossed in an X, my heart pounding, and my soul light. At the moment I was given the Body and Blood of Christ, I had an experience I have never had, nor do I expect to have again. It was a mystical experience. It is very hard to explain, but I liken it to the feeling a martyr  of Christ must have when they are condemned to die and the execution is about to occur and a rush of joy fills their soul. I am not comparing myself to a martyr, please don't misunderstand. I just don't know how else to explain it. I have yet to experience this again, but the Eucharist means so much more to me now than it ever has. It is a miracle every Sunday (or every time a Divine Liturgy occurs).
The people bring the gifts of ordinary bread, made by their hands with gifts that God provides (wheat, water, and yeast) and God transforms the ordinary into the Extraordinary, the very Body and Blood of Christ! How can this be? We have no idea, it is a mystery. Much like the mystery of the Incarnation, the Trinity, a sinner repenting, the infinite God in the womb of the Theotokos, the two natures of Christ, and the Church herself.
 
These are all miracles in the Orthodox Church and mysteries. We cherish them, protect them, and many have died for them. Praise be to God!
 


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