So what are your thoughts on the symbolism of eating another mans flesh and drinking his blood? Jesus obviously didnt want it being said in quite this manner, but how would eating another human being lead to eternal salvation?

Eternal Salvation: Eternal resurrection of the body and spirit, to never die again. Made possible through the atonement and resurrection of the Savior.


There's an old book titled: "Christ The Vampire" . The concept of ES, strikes me as that analogy. The blood is the life, we know this by DNA analysis. We contain minuscule replicas of all that we are, in countless number, in this body. Our bodies regenerate. Skin, organs, all rebuild in a microcosmic way, all our lives. It's what makes our scars seem to lessen in definition. New skin, new body, as time passes. I think of the communion as very pagan indeed. Consume the blood, the life. Take in the spirit of (jesus) brings that spirit into one's own body. Now one is the host of that spirit. The jesus myth comes after so many and mimics so many that speak of savior gods and salvation, in the same way as he defined it to be. Eternal life, after life.

Maybe the underlying story is what we've seen in the astronomical sciences discoveries. The myths are analogous to our self-replicating multi-verse. So that spirits never do die, they just get reformed, as they re-enter the chaos of chemistries and nuclear powers, to become something else. While people slap on mythologies, and make it all very very personal and specific to human kinds fondness for needing to feel led to be better than they feel they are, gives rise to philosophies and religions, idea's and "senses" , of what we are while we're here. That christ myth, as so many others like it before, may simply communicate the simple message in metaphor. We're flesh eaters, blood drinkers, predators, till the day we die. We sustain ourselves using one another, consuming that flesh and blood beingness, serving our purpose as individual and collective humanity. And after that, it all means nothing to what we could ever understand but that's why there's that mention about eternal life. Because like everything we see die now, we don't know where it goes, we just know whats left and are comforted in that, by the myths that assure our fears, there's something more.

The catholic thing is a bunch of foolishness hard to say who they borrowed it from possibly even a real canible tribe of head hunters nothing would surprise me with Momma Church .

What you refer too in the real church is a service done once a year in remembrence of the last meal Christ ate with his desiples he said to do it in remembrance of him . so the church does it every year the night before the passover at the time of the last supper .

The next day would of been when christ would die he had to die at the exact moment that the passover would of died (No HE WASN"T THE EASTER BUNNY ,HE WAS THE PASSOVER) .This ceromony is to let us remember his sacrifice . how he suffered the next day . And how he was innocent A Innocent Lamb of God had to die because of our transgressions .

Thats what most forget If Just you and christ only ever walked this earth he had to die because of what you did . You broke the Fathers Commands , you put jesus there too .

So your Under the Stake Watching The passover Die his blood dripping because of you , do you really think you should go back out and sin frely like alot of churches allow for ? or did the service in the real church remind you how christ suffered for you .

Its service to Remind you of Christ suffering for you . Its the Most imortant service of the Year for the real church . They relise Christ our Psassover was sacrificed for them .He was innocent , Their Not . should be them there .

The Catholic service done once a week hard to say where they dug that up .not biblical

What if you're a vegetarian???????

unleaven bread and wine (real wine too ) won't hurt ya

The doctrine of transubstantiation was invented by Roman catholocism. The communion memorial doctrine according to scripture uses the bread and wine in rememberance only of what the sacrifice on the tree at calvary meant. These are two different schools of thought entirely.

Different denominations belive differnet things. Lutherans, (like me) belive and teach that christ is present durring comunion, but that there is not a magical transformation that takes place. The last supper is for us to remember the sacrifice that Chrsit made for all of mankind. There is a cleansing and mystical element to it. It was never ment to be a form of canablisam.

Same over here in the UK, I'm a member of an open Baptist Church.

suppose I'll throw the Orthodox view out there.

It is the body and blood of Christ. Don't ask me how that happens; I know not. It is one of those things conveniently termed a mystery. It is a sacrifice. Read the section titled 'The Eucharist as a sacrifice' of this: http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0804/__P1J.HTM
Use Ctrl-F to find it. It is the last section of the page.


A Eucharist celebrated once a week, or more frequently, has been around for a very long time. I think since the beginnings of Christianity, but I am not sure. Very infrequent celebration of the Eucharist is a feature only found in some low church Protestant denominations.
Anyway, the view you present is not biblical either.

It depends on how you look at it. The bread and wine could be seen as Jesus's body and blood or it could be seen as the actual bread and wine that was present at The Last Supper.

I just see it as bread that taste like cardboard and wine that tastes like motor oil...with peoples backwash in it.

I remember my second grade communion class where one kid said "What happens when we eat all of Jesus?" and another kid said "Does this make us zombies?".

Intereting thought, never occured to me. One more reason not to be a Christian At least not the kind any Church I've been to is filled with. If you ever want a high percentage of hypocrites in a given population just visit your local church.

I take the underlying meaning to be much simpler than the church communicates. I take Holy Communion to mean an extension of the washing of the feet. Jesus is saying, just as I freely give up my body and blood, so that you may have eternal life; please give yours up to one another. Make the ultimate sacrifice to one another. "Remember my sacrifice," wasn't meant to become some mystical ceremony. It was meant to be in memory of the sacrifice made.

It's hard sometimes to focus on this, because the Roman Catholic Church has butchered the original humble symbolism, IMO. I think Holy Communion should only be practiced with small groups of Christians and then discussed in a very personal way. That way the memory would forever be preserved, as it was intended, instead of some chime based melodrama designed to hypnotize us all into reverent submission.

Cannibalism is usually practiced as a funeral rite. In those cultures it is a way to keep your love one with by making them part of your body. Kind of a beautiful thought when you think about it.
I thought of the communion as more of a ritual toast. Heres to Jesus who gave his body and blood to save us from death, cheers.

The Eucharist ... At the last supper, Jesus supposedly proclaims the wine the [disciples] drink to be his blood, the bread they eat his flesh. Eat and drink of it and be saved (John 6:53–56). This gruesome ritual was practiced amongst many religions of antiquity. It was not unique to Christianity. In fact, some scholars believe it’s possible to trace such rituals to a period in the distant past known as the Totem Stage (I believe this is the correct term). During this period, tribes were honoring and sacrificing--making sin-offerings (bear or bull)--to Totem spirits. They then ate the sin-offering in a “Eucharistic-type” feast. Elaine Pagels (Princeton University) draws a similar conclusion in her book Beyond Belief, by stating, “. . . many Jews and gentiles might have recognized the eucharist as typical of ancient cult worship.” (p.19)

I just took a gander at the late Edward Carpenter’s (Brighton College; Trinity Hall, Cambridge) book Pagan and Christian Creeds (p.72) where he makes an interesting statement about sacrifice, sin-offering, and Christianity: “I say it is an astonishing thing to think and realize that this profound and mystic doctrine of eternal sacrifice of Himself, ordained by the Great Spirit for the creation and salvation of the world--a doctrine which has attracted and fascinated many of the great thinkers and nobler minds of Europe, which has also inspired the religious teachings of Indian sages and to a less philosophical degree the writings of the Christian saints--should have been seized in its general outline and essence by rude and primitive people before the dawn of history, and embodied in their rites and ceremonies.”

Sean

We have the Foot washing also at this last Supper service , really humbles you .

Once a year is how it Should be , its to remind us Of Christ sacrifice.

It really Is a Deep Service in the Church Of God , really moves you to remember .


Members of the Church of God Beleave they should not Miss this service . Its the Big one of the Whole year .

Its done the Night before the Passover .

The passover is not a High Day , but the Day after that Is . The first day of Unleaven Bread is a High Day or a sabbath /

most christians are tricked into easter not reliseing the high day sabbath fell on a thursday the year Christ died . Most christians Don't even know about High Days . But the early church kept them in the pages of the bible .


If Peter did Go to ROME he Must of Hit his Head on the Way there and forgot every thing he ever learned .


I think Alot relise Peter Never Went To Rome , Was it Simion Magnus that started Modern Christianity?

Was it all a fake from the begginning ?

I think it can be proven Something was Wrong ? What abouyt the Laying on of Hands to recieve the Holy Spirit after Baptism ? Would there not be a Chain back to the Apostles Hands?

Most modern Christian Churches forgot how the apostles gave others the holy spirit ,Something is Wrong. Could their of Been a Imposter in Rome right from the Beggining ? Was their never no Holy Spirit in The Church now in Rome ?

Wasn't PETER !!!!!!

There is a wonderful document writen by several scholors across many Christian denominations that was published a while back and is now online for free vewing.

http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2638

This helps explain the eucarist and many questions involved with it. We celebrate it once a week here at church, I would like to have it slightly less often but I am not the seinor pastors so i dont get to make that call. Regardless it is a time when we remember the sacrifice christ makes for us and know that he is there to renew and refresh us for the comming week. Each person comes at it from a slightly differnt place. We are all in a differnt place with our journey with God. I would hope those who come forward are respectful of the event. It is not uncommon for non christians who are at church here, for weddings or babtisms or other family events to simply sit in the pew and not come up for communion. No one hassles them, no one berrates them, it they do then they are going to get chewed out at the least by me and the other pastor. The eucharist is not a time for evangalism or converstion, it is a rite and titual for practicing christians, thats all.

It's a metaphor. It's not meant to be a representation of literally eating Him.
And salvation does not depend on this metaphor. Salvation is a seperate matter entirely, having to do with repenting of one's sin nature.

The meaning is accepting everlasting life, which is symbolized by the blood and flesh. Also, it is a graphic reminder of the nature of the sacrifice made for us. We tend to forget the brutality He endured for us.