Reflection during Holy Communion

Scripture Reference: John 18:33-38 1 Corin 11:23-30

We are told by Paul to take the bread and the wine and remember Jesus. Rememberance is not a sentimental nostalgia. Not reliving a glorious era or period over and over. A true act of remembering is the ability to connect the past with how we are faring now. It’s the ability to take a pivotal event in the past and apply the lessons to face today. The telling of the past instructs, informs and encourages us to live in the present in the light of the past. Take for example, the events of the racial riots of May 13 in the past, helps us to never take each racial group for granted. We remember May 13 as a painful event and guard and check ourselves today to exercise restraint, tolerance & respecting each other as it is too painful and too great a cost to go through it again.

Likewise remembering the sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood as the perfect lamb for our sins marks an important and loving event 2000 years ago, and begs a questions, what does it mean for us today?

That brings us to the Pontius Pilate’s question before Jesus, “What is truth?” The truth of the matter is, Pilate is not interested in truth. He is interested in keeping peace in his obscure Jewish outpost, so that his career will not be jeopardized. He asks the question, but does not wait for the answer. For he had waited and pondered and listened to the voice of faith than to the voice of the crowd, he would have consider the Way, the Truth, and the Life standing in front of him. Perhaps he asked out of sarcasm, perhaps he asked a question ahead of his time. A question which perhaps more apt and fitting for our times, in today’s sophiscated and technologically savvy world.

The world today asks also the question, “What is truth?” And the truth is, sometimes we are also guilty of being more concerned about keeping peace and happiness than righteousness and holiness, about thinking much about ourselves than thinking much of others, about receiving than giving, about going our own ways than submitting our ways to Christ Jesus.

This morning we remember Jesus’ sacrificial act on the cross through his broken body and shedding of his blood, we bring this past event and try to connect and integrate it in our lives today. We ask not, “What is truth?” for we are already followers of the Truth, but how has truth being evident in our lives, being applied in our lives and how has Christ being seen in every facet of our lives… that is the question we ask this morning. We shall ponder this question for a while and allow ourselves to answer that question in our hearts before our Lord…..