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Easter
The meaning of the love feast divides Christians now as it has in the past. The reality is that whatever meaning you attach to the symbols you are wrong because it is not a symbolic meal!
What really does a bit of dry cracker and a thimble of grape juice signify? That the life of Christ is dry and scarce? If we are doing a symbolic meal let us at least have massive loaves of bread and buckets of wine! Forget the plastic thimbles! Bring out the beer steins! Jesus died to give us life and life more abundant! His first miracle was turning water into wine, lots of wine!
In the New Testament the love feast was not a symbolic meal served by religious professionals. It was a real meal shared in homes. It was not ritual. It was not magic. It was the sharing of real food and real life.
The reason Paul was speaking to the Corinthians about their love feast was because some ate too much and some got drunk while others went hungry! Their sin in not discerning the body of the Lord was the sin of excluding the poor from the feast.
That is another thing we do with our symbolic meal, we make is exclusive to members of our particular religious group. Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners (would there be enough evidence to convict you of the same?) and of eating with sinners. His love feasts were not exclusive!
Maybe division and exclusion equals sickness and death? Maybe that is what Paul meant in I Corinthians 11:30?
According to Jesus (Luke 10:1- 10) one of the primary means of extending His kingdom is to eat and drink with people that do not yet know Him and He practiced the same when he want to Zacheus' house for dinner.
Enjoy a real love feast!
Share it with those that do not yet know Jesus!
Show His death and resurrection until He comes!
Show that you are His body!
Do what He did!
Harvest Now!
Steve & Marilyn Hill