Souvenir Christianity

Last Sunday I shared about our Lord’s Supper service in which we used olive wood cups to serve the juice. I relayed how that after a two and one-half hour time lapse between filling the cups and partaking of the Lord’s Supper that some of the cups had completely absorbed the juice and that the juice having taken on the taste of the olive wood tasted bitter. Each participant took the used cup home with them as a souvenir. When the cups dried however we noticed that the juice had left a crimson stain. No amount of rinsing could wash it away. I noted that these facts reminded me of how we are supposed to absorb Christ and how having absorbed him our lives are changed. If Christ does absorb us we will be stained and that stain is His identifying mark upon us. I noted that the bitter taste of the juice reminded me of the bitter cross Christ had to bear. As followers of Christ we also are sometimes called upon to be involved in bitter work. My friend Pat Pajak told me afterwards that I should have used white grape juice and waited to fill the cups about 30 minutes before the Lord’s Supper service. That way less juice would be absorbed by the cup, it would not take on as much taste from the wood, and the cup would not be stained. That sounds like good logistical thinking. It would be less messy and the people could go home with a less blemished souvenir.  

On the other hand maybe we have just identified a problem of the Christian faith. We engage in to much souvenir Christianity. We have no desire to absorb very much of Christ. We come to worship looking for a small and quick dose of Christ and if we discover we got a little to much we can rinse it off. It does not change us much. Therefore it does not prepare us to taste the bitter cup of suffering nor does it compel us to drink the often bitter cup of service. It is a stainless faith. I guess that kind of faith makes a good souvenir. But it does not identify us and it does not make much difference in the world.

A Memorable Lord's Supper

We celebrated the Lord’s Supper last Sunday morning. We served the juice in cups made of olive wood that had been made in Bethlehem. I had bought the cups on my recent trip to Israel with the intent that after using them each partaker could take the cup home with them as a souvenir. It was a different experience with observations worthy of notice. We had filled the cups before the Sunday School hour. By the time we served the cup at the end of the worship time two and one-half hours had lapsed. When I stepped down from the platform to serve the Lord’s Supper I noticed that the olive wood cups had absorbed some of the juice. In fact a few of the cups had completely absorbed all the juice that had been poured into them. It occurred to me that as God’s chosen vessels we are to absorb Christ becoming more and more like Him each day. When we drank from the cup it tasted bitter. The fruit of the vine had taken on the flavor of olive wood. It reminded me of the bitter cup Christ had to drink in bearing our sin on the cross. From a different angle I thought of how the presence of Christ changes the flavor of our lives and how His love and mercy and grace and peace can change the flavor of the world. I thought of how Christ drank a bitter cup in order that the world might taste a sweeter cup. The folks took the now empty and juice saturated cups home with them. I took mine as well and sat it on my desk to dry. When it had dried it was left with a reddish stain. The stain reminds me of Christ’s mark upon our lives. For when we truly absorb Christ we are not the same. We have been changed. We are different. His mark is upon us. That mark is left to remind us of who we are. It is left to cause those whom we encounter to inquire about who we are.