In his blog, John Mark McMillan was saying:
"Why do church people focus so much on the cross when Jesus' death was actually powerless without the resurrection? (at least that's what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:13)
If Christians taught more on resurrection than death, would Christianity be more interesting? Or maybe Christians might be more interesting people? Would I be more interesting?
Do we focus more on death because we don't really understand resurrection?
What if I focused on living resurrection instead of mostly talking about it and singing about it?
What if I don't have to wait until I die to be resurrected but my body, which dies a little everyday, could be resurrected every day?"
And I've been reading Rob Bell's book Jesus Wants to Save Christians. In it he talks about the church actually being the Eucharist. I've been pondering this all as I look at various churches and their websites and what they are about. Some churches practice the Eucharist every week. Some do not mention it at all.
This is all very interesting to me.
Does practicing the Eucharist keep our focus on Jesus' death and our sin? Or does it point to the life we can live as the resurrected?
I do think that practicing the Eucharist every week does build community ties if it's done in a manner that would cause us to be in contact with each other. I mean breaking bread and drinking wine/juice across the table from someone really brings it to "Jesus did this for US" rather than "Jesus died for ME." I think how you execute communion is key. But I don't really know. I'm just thinking it through.
I would like a season of having it every week I think.
But John Mark was right, we focus too much on the death rather than living the resurrected life every day, living like Jesus no matter what.
I don't know. I've been sitting on this for days, but my thoughts still aren't fully formed. I'm kind of living in a daze right now.
Anyone else have any profound, or otherwise, thoughts on this?
And I've been reading Rob Bell's book Jesus Wants to Save Christians. In it he talks about the church actually being the Eucharist. I've been pondering this all as I look at various churches and their websites and what they are about. Some churches practice the Eucharist every week. Some do not mention it at all.
This is all very interesting to me.
Does practicing the Eucharist keep our focus on Jesus' death and our sin? Or does it point to the life we can live as the resurrected?
I do think that practicing the Eucharist every week does build community ties if it's done in a manner that would cause us to be in contact with each other. I mean breaking bread and drinking wine/juice across the table from someone really brings it to "Jesus did this for US" rather than "Jesus died for ME." I think how you execute communion is key. But I don't really know. I'm just thinking it through.
I would like a season of having it every week I think.
But John Mark was right, we focus too much on the death rather than living the resurrected life every day, living like Jesus no matter what.
I don't know. I've been sitting on this for days, but my thoughts still aren't fully formed. I'm kind of living in a daze right now.
Anyone else have any profound, or otherwise, thoughts on this?
