Wash Up Before Dinner

Wednesday, July 5, 2000

VERSE:

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.

-- 1 Corinthians 11:26

http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?Jeremiah+7:5-7

THOUGHT:

What exactly is this meal about? What happens when we proclaim this death? The meal is about grace and making right, making new. The proclamation of the death brings you, myself, into the continuum of life death and resurrection of Jesus.

Hear the Good News, when we share in this Holy meal, our life is put back into perspective. How is this you ask? Each day of our life we get run down or run ourselves down. Further, if we are honest with ourselves, we have moments when we are less than the Christian we are called to be. To put it in other words, our life is like a play ground. We play, we run, but at times we fall and scrape our knees, our hands and get dirty. Time here is filled with laughter, but occasionally tears as well. But when the day is over and it is time to go home for supper, before we sit to eat, we need to get cleaned up. We turn on the water, wet our hands lather up with the soap and wash the dirt, the playground off. After drying our hands and face off, we sit to fill our stomachs and restore that lost energy we spent playing.

As we prepare to share in this Holy meal of the Eucharist, we stop, and by God's Grace, wash the dirt from our lives, offering unto God our tears and sharing our laughter. Then we sit and share in a meal that restores our heart and soul, enabling us to re-enter the "playground" of life the next day.

PRAYER:

Gracious God, thank You many things, for the laughter and for soothing the tears. I count myself blessed and fortunate to be invited to Your table. Allow this "food" to strengthen me all of my days. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.