I got an email the other day from Neil, a friend in Edinburgh, who I had not been in touch with for a while. Like me, he had been in Berlin recently, and he went to a service at the Berliner Dom, the city’s beautiful and imposing cathedral.
Neil says he took communion at the service and was intrigued to discover that the wine they used was white sherry. Perhaps they’d run out of red wine, or else the German Lutheran Church believes that Jesus was a haemophiliac.
Quite what their evidence would be I am not sure, especially as there was no reference to his blood being white at his crucifixion. But they seem confident enough to use white wine, so who are the rest of us to argue?
And it got me thinking. What other things could feasibly be used at communion to represent the blood or body of Jesus, and why? How about cod liver oil for example, to represent all the fish he caught? It would at least purge communions of all but the most dedicated…
I used irn bru and bourbon biscuits once – it was all we had with us, though we weren’t in a church. Had a long debate first whether the produce was that important or was it the thoughts and spiritual side that made it communion.
Haven’t been struck down by lightening yet and it happened 10 years ago!
I think the ‘Hammer House of Horror ‘ Communion practiced in some churches is a bit off the mark. The Lord’s Supper could just as easily be interpreted
as Christ saying – ‘When you have a cup of tea remember my shed blood ‘
‘ When you have a sandwich remember my broken body ‘
A piece of bread and something to drink is a constant reminder to us of the broken body and shed blood of Christ. – So you don’t always need the Transport Cafe’ line up.
When I was a teenager there was a bit of a mix up by the lady who prepared communion.
For some reason she picked up Grapefruit juice instead of Grape juice. In a flash of brilliance, she decided to put some red food colouring in so that the congregation wouldn’t realise it was the wrong one.
The expressions on people’s faces were absolutely priceless!
buckie m’on!