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Historian William Manchester in his book, Goodbye, Darkness, writes of some Papuans during World War II who observed some white men opening refrigerator doors and taking out some delightful things. “So they build imitation refrigerators of wood, paint them white, and peek inside from time to time, looking for snacks and tinned beer.”
They never find any. The ritual doesn’t work. But they know it should, because they’ve also seen some white men pick up a tube, say a few words, and soon a plane lands bearing marvelous freight. So the Papuan knows what to do: “He puts together a facsimile of a telephone with tin cans and a string. He shuffles paper and speaks into the can; then he searches the sky, predicting, ‘Moni i kam baimbai’ (‘Money he come by and by’).”
But the money doesn’t come, either. So he keeps fiddling with his ceremonies and building more and better refrigerators and phones, convinced that sooner or later he’ll get it right and the rituals will work and the money will come.
Unfortunately, he thinks there’s magic in his rituals.
That’s not so strange. Some people think there’s magic in water. With enough water and the right words spoken and the right person speaking them, salvation is guaranteed. The power is in the ritual.
And so it is with Communion. If the right person says the right words in the right manner, magic happens.
So very, very careful attention is paid. We must get the details right.
Well, details are important, of course. But the power is not in the precision of the ritual but in the person who inspires it. We are baptized into Christ. We partake of the body and the blood of Christ. The emphasis is not on the credentials of the person doing the baptizing or presiding at the Lord’s table. Neither do we build bigger and better altars nor develop bigger and better ceremonies in order to impress the Lord or one another with our devotion to correct rituals.
The focus is on the person. He is Messiah and Lord, he is the Lover and Savior. He’s the One who says, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me,” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25).
What he wants, it is clear, is not the performance of a ritual but the strengthening of a relationship.
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