The service called the eucharist is the central act of the Christian community. Given, we believe, by Jesus himself on the night before his death, it sums up and expresses in symbol our faith in God, our desire to give ourselves to him, and our renewal by him through his love.
In understanding the meaning of the eucharist there are four interlocking words whose meaning takes us to the heart of the rite. The first of these is eucharist or thanksgiving. The word is a richer deeper one than implied by our English word ‘thanks’. It is a prayerful acknowledgement to God of all that he has given us, our very existence but above all the gift of Jesus himself. The eucharist is a pointer to the fact that the whole Christian life is or should be a joyful movement of thanks, praise and blessing to God for all that he gives us. It is also apparent that the more we are able to be a thankful people, the more God can give to us of his love and care.
The second word that we need to understand is remember or memorial. The eucharist is a memorial of an event long ago but this does not make it a mere remembering in the usual English sense of the word. The Jews had an understanding that when they brought before God in prayer a past event where he had been active, they became in a sense contemporaries of that event. The memorial of the Passover each spring meant that the Jews once more experienced the saving power of God that was shown in Egypt and it was at Passover time in particular that they looked for a new intervention of God by sending his Messiah. Christians believe that as they ‘remember’ the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus they become contemporaries of those events and are able to receive the outpouring of love, acceptance and forgiveness that Jesus’ sacrificial death has won for the whole world.
The third word that undergirds the whole rite is the word sacrifice. It is a word that has caused confusion because some Christians have centred on this word to the exclusion of the other two. The word is nevertheless important because it indicates that the death of Christ was not just a disconnected event but the culmination of a life of total self-offering to God. A life completely lived for God is a sacrifice in this sense and certainly we can see that for Jesus the dedication of his life to the will of God was more important than anything else. The resurrection and ascension show us that God received Christ into his glory and therefore Christians who belong to Christ through baptism and discipleship can come before God and ask that he ‘look on us as found in him’. In other words we ask that God will receive and bless us because of what Christ has done on our behalf. And yet we do not just plead Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf, we ask that our lives may become more and more lives of self-offering and sacrifice. As one prayer from the eucharist puts it, ‘we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice’.
In short the service of the eucharist is not part of our religion, it is our religion. It sums up and expresses our need both to give and receive from God and to experience our participation in Christ both in the elements of the bread and wine and in our desire to belong more to one another in the act of communion. Communion is the fourth word that describes the way in which our Christian lives seek a greater oneness both with God and one another. The eucharist expresses that longing and helps to make it a reality.
The basic shape of the service is simple and direct:-
The Welcome and the preparation. After a welcome and seasonal sentence, the service starts on a sombre note as we ask God who knows us through and through to cleanse our hearts that we can pray to him and know him better.
The Ministry of the Word. Readings from Scripture place our faith in the context of the history of God’s self-revelation in the past and we join ourselves to what we have heard in a psalm and a hymn. The final reading is from one of the gospels, speaking to us of God as shown in Jesus. For the Gospel we always stand. The sermon helps us to reflect on these readings.
The Intercession. Prayer which brings the needs of the Church and the world as well as our own concerns great and small into the setting of our faith in God.
The Confession and absolution. Having acknowledged our need of God at the beginning of the service, we now confess these failings and shortcomings (which he already knows) and ask for his forgiveness. The absolution is a proclamation of that forgiveness.
The Peace. A sign of our reconciliation and fellowship with one another, in anticipation of our communion with God.
The Preparation of the Gifts. The bread and the wine are made ready for the communion. At the same time the collection is brought to the altar to represent the offering of our lives to God. The priest offers the bread and wine to God also representing our lives and work and God gives them back to us as consecrated, transformed and effective symbols of love and presence with us at all times. Offering our lives to God is the way that they find their true meaning and purpose.
The Eucharistic Prayer. This is the prayer of thanksgiving, in which we recognise all that God has given to us, but most especially the gift of Jesus. The prayer is also a prayer of consecration asking that the gifts will become for us the Body and Blood of Jesus. In brief the prayer is one in which we thank God in order that we may be open to receive from God.
The Communion. We join in Jesus’ own prayer for the Kingdom before sharing in ‘our daily bread’ and the cup of life.
After Communion. We pause briefly to reflect on our life renewed and then go out to that life in the world which is open to God and all that he wants for us and from us.
Every eucharist is a celebration. It is a celebration of life as given to us by God; it is a celebration and thanksgiving for the life of Jesus through whom we have access to God and are able to receive his blessing, love and forgiveness. Celebration is then a mark of our worship. In the singing of hymns and in the response to the prayers there is to be the mark of joy. It is ‘our duty and joy at all times and in all places to give you thanks and praise’. May this sense of joy pervade the atmosphere and mood of every celebration as we come together to be the people of God and rededicate ourselves to his service and receive his special love for us.