Memories!

This is the first opportunity I have had, since coming away on holiday, to add a post to this blog!  I am grateful, therefore, to McDonald's, not just for the meal that I am currently enjoying, but for the included wi-fi connection!  (Mind you, we may have spent all of those euros unnecessarily, as the gentlaman at the next table has been online for as long as I have, without having purchased anything!!!!

On our journey from Ploermel, today, we travelled along many stretches of road that had trees on either side, with the top branches meeting to form a long archway - like the nave of a grand cathedral building.  These are known by some of us as "mummy's roads", due to the fact that my late mum loved to drive along such foliage-shaded avenues.   I cannot take such a journey without thinking of my mum.  Now, of course, I don't actually need such a stretch of road to remember her!  I loved, and miss, both her and my late dad, far too much to need some external prompting of the memory.  But they are always there as an extra, special, reminder.

Today, however, I found myself thinking of the Lord's Supper (aka, Communion, the Eucharist, the Breaking of Bread, the Lord's table).  That is a symbolic meal (although there is a good argument for making it much more than that.  The Lord Jesus, when He celebrated that last Passover Meal with His disciples, didn't have wee squares of bread and a thimble-full of liquid.  Indeed, what they did share at that time was in the context of a full meal enjoyed beforehand!), that is shared by disciple of Jesus today on a regular basis.  And the reason for it, Jesus Himself told us, is that we might remember Him, and the sacrifice that He made for each one of us, at Calvary.  Now, of course, no true disciple needs such a meal in order to remember Him.  We love Him far too much for that.  But it's good to have such special aids to memory, and we should be grateful for them

The Lord's Supper has an added element.  We are reminded, by the words of Paul, that we only participate in that special meal "until He comes" (I Cor. 11:26).  This is the great hope of the genuine believer - that "This Jesus, Who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11).  Those who have the gift of discerning the times are certain that that Day is not far off.  Certainly, it is closer now than it was when the angelic messangers spoke those words to the early disciple band.  It is incumbent upon each one of us to be prepared for that rapture of the people of God.  I trust that all who read this post will have come to Him, the crucified and risen One, in repentance and faith, and thus be prepared for His appearing.