The Eucharist (sometimes called the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion)

The eucharist (from the Greek word for Thanksgiving) is one of the sacraments accepted by all Christians. A sacrament is a sacred ceremony which is a sign of Christ's presence in the Church and the lives of Christians. Protestants accept only two sacraments, baptism and eucharist as these are the only two which have an indisputable foundation in the New Testament. The churches of the Catholic tradition accept these two plus five others. It is known under the following names: eucharist, holy communion, the Lord's supper, the breaking of bread.

To find out what is so important about the eucharist read the following passages:

Mark 14:22-25;

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body." Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. "This is my blood of the[a] covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. "I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God."

1st Corinthians 11:17-34.

In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval. When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not! For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment. And when I come I will give further directions.

Christians differ in their views of the eucharist. All agree that it is the sign of the new covenant (contract) between God and "his" followers. The old covenant between God and Israel was created when God freed the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. They accepted God as their ruler in return for obeying his laws and becoming a people specially dedicated to him. The Hebrew people became a distinct community through this covenant. Without it they would have been absorbed into the Egyptian nation. The covenant was sealed with the Passover meal at which the Jews still smear their doors with the blood of the pascal lamb which they will be eating that night. One vitally important point is that at the Passover meal a Jewish father reminds his children that they, not just their ancestors, were freed from slavery in Egypt by the Lord. The passover is seen as a reliving of the deliverance from Egypt.

This is important for the eucharist. Christians believe that Christ is the new pascal lamb. Just as the Pascal lamb was the sacrificial victim whose death marks the establishment of the old covenant, so Jesus is the lamb of God whose death atones (pays) for sin and seals the new covenant. In this new covenant people are freed from slavery to sin and are given the promise of eternal life. The community of the old covenant was Israel; the community of the new covenant is the church (all Christians) . The old covenant was with one nation, the new covenant is for all nations. The celebration meal of the new covenant is the eucharist, at which Christians eat bread and drink wine as Jesus did at the Last Supper.

While all Christians would agree on the above the different denominations now have different opinions about what happens at the service. The Roman Catholic church would argue that the bread and the wine mystically become the body and blood of Jesus (transubstantiation) and this led to claims of cannibalism for the early Christians. The Protestant tradition rejects this view on the grounds that Jesus made his sacrifice once and for all on the cross and cannot be sacrificed again, as he is now in glory. So the eucharist is just in memory of this event and it is by recreating the event that Christians remember the importance of Christ's life and death and resurrection.

The eucharist can be seen as a sharing in the blessings gained by Christ's one sacrifice on the cross. Furthermore, any act of self-giving is a sacrifice, and, as Christians believe that Christ gives himself to humankind in the eucharist, we can see the eucharist as a sacrifice in this sense.

	Old Covenant	New Covenant
Salvation	Slavery	Sin and death
Victim	Pascal Lamb	Christ
Community	Israel	Church
Meal	Passover	Eucharist

There are differences in emphasis between Christian denominations in respect of the eucharist. For Roman Catholics the eucharistic service, known as the mass, is the very center of their worship, and members of the Roman Catholic church are obliged to take communion at least once a year. Active Roman Catholics take it weekly or even daily. Daily communion is less common in other denominations, but weekly communion is known in the Anglican and several other churches.

Lutherans, a group more common in Germany and Scandinavia than in Britain, tend to take communion on a less regular basis though many are now moving towards a weekly communion. Many Baptist and evangelical groups do not take communion weekly, but have weekly services at which Scripture is read and a sermon preached.

Why are there such differences between Christians on this important matter? The explanation comes in the fact that Christians value sacraments and preaching, but disagree about their relative importance. The more importance a church places on sacraments, the more importance it places on the eucharist. Similarly, members of churches of the evangelical tradition, which strongly emphasises the value of preaching take part in communion less frequently than do members of churches in the Roman Catholic tradition.

One or two churches do not practice the Lord's Supper at all. One of these is the Society of Friends, commonly known by the originally insulting name of Quakers. They have no organised worship at all, and their meetings are informal gatherings at which all sit together and give voice to their thoughts and feelings as they see fit, though in a quiet and dignified manner. As meetings of this Society are simple prayer meetings, there is no felt need for a eucharistic service. Another group which hardly practices the eucharist is the Unitarians, who believe that Jesus was merely a prophet and not divine. In some Eastern European countries Unitarians do celebrate the eucharist, but this is hardly ever the case with British Unitarians. As they see Jesus as a great thinker or prophet, they feel no need to communicate with him in a eucharistic way.

A eucharistic service generally has the following elements:

• Confession of sins. This is to obtain forgiveness from God and to be spiritually clean to take part in eucharist.
• Bible readings and sermon
• Creed - a statement of faith to say what Christians state what they believe - see Apostle's Creed
• The offertory - where the bread and wine are brought to the altar
• Blessing of bread and wine - A retelling of the last supper where the bread and wine and blessed and the words of Jesus at the last supper "this is my body" (bread) and "this is my blood" (wine) are repeated by the minister / priest.
• The communion: this is where the congregation receive bread and (sometimes) wine.