What Do You Mean By This Service?
Exodus 12:26
I don’t watch traditional TV anymore.
Most of the media I consume is with streaming services.
Some of those services have ads that can’t be easily blocked on my smartphone.
One of those ads that keeps popping up is a kid asking the question: “How did you get this so fast?” or “How do you like doing homework?” or “How did you find this awesome place?”
While some of those questions don’t sound like something a kid would ask, there are times when kids ask questions, and we should be ready to answer them.
At PTP, on Sunday morning, the crowd is so large, on the order of a few thousand, that passing the tray for the Lord’s Supper like we do here would take a very long time.
So to remedy this situation, they hand out these small travel communion packets to people as they walk in.
At the appropriate time, we eat the bread and drink the cup.
They then have these boxes as trash cans to discard the containers after the services are over.
At one point, my daughter saw them and asked, “Daddy, what’s that?”
I couldn’t be prouder of my her for noticing this or happier to explain it to her!
In ancient Israel, the people were to keep the Passover feast every year.
It was to commemorate the exodus of the Israelites from the land of Egypt.
It was a strange sort of supper.
They ate roasted lamb, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Exo. 12:8).
This was unusual for them, since they typically ate leavened bread and left off the bitter herbs.
It was so unusual, the children were likely to ask what this was about (Exo. 12:26).
It was a teaching opportunity for them to be taught and reminded of what the Lord has done for them (Exo. 12:27).
We see in times when the Israelites forgot this that they turned away from God (2 Chron. 35:18).
King Josiah kept this Passover like no other since the time of Samuel before him.
None of the kings, that includes David, Solomon, Asa, or Hezekiah kept the Passover like this—no doubt they kept it, but it wasn’t given the emphasis it was due.
And we see through the turbulent history of the kingdom what the result was.
They lacked in the proper teaching of the things of God.
It’s why we emphasize it so much!
So we must keep up the practice of coming to worship and taking the Lord’s Supper every week.
This serves as a necessary teaching tool for our kids.
And when they ask, let us not brush it under the rug, but sit down with them and answer their questions.
It can’t just come from the pulpit or from their Bible class teachers—it must come from the parents as well.
Let us also instill in them the need to continue this practice for their children, and their children’s children.
Only then will the church continue, only then will it thrive.
But you have to know about that first, and obey the gospel for it to truly have meaning.
Back then, the only people who could partake of the Passover meal were Israelites, and strangers whose males had been circumcised (Exo. 12:47-49).
For us, we practice open communion, in that whomever comes may partake, but the distinction in whom we have true fellowship with is made internally, not externally.
And if you want the Lord’s Supper to have true meaning for you, obey the gospel today!