Her First Communion
Many years ago there was a young lady who was engaged to be married. But she became pregnant before her wedding. It all became a huge scandal and attempts were made to keep it a secret. The young woman’s fiancé knew the child was not his. But he went through with the wedding and the child was taken in as his own. And for a while, everything seemed to be fine.
But as time went on, the young couple started having some problems with their son. He was not always where they thought he should be. He seemed to have an agenda they did not understand. As the son grew older he began to say and do things they disagreed with, and as he matured the rest of their children felt isolated by his strange public behavior. There were even moments when the entire family tried to have interventions with this oldest son but to no avail. Eventually they watched him get into more and more trouble.
The boy, who was now a man, got arrested on several occasions and was often seen running with a rough crowd. He was a bit of a vagabond. He traveled all over the country and slept in strange places and lived off the livelihood of others. He became known for saying controversial things and he often questioned authority. His decisions and actions became so threatening that he was finally sentenced to death and executed by the governing authorities.
One could only imagine the devastation the dead son’s mother felt. This child that had been conceived out of wedlock, the one she had hoped would overcome it, was instead lost. The dreams she had for her boy…and the love she had for her firstborn…impossible to be enumerated was the grief and anguish this mother was experiencing over the death of her own flesh and blood.
It has been said that the greatest tragedy any parent could ever know would be the loss of a child. With her husband also gone, the woman was now going through a period of bereavement that seemed unfathomable. The pain she was dealing with was simply more than she could bear.
But thankfully, there was hope. The woman heard about a man named Jesus. In a sermon preached by a friend, she heard about the Christ who came into the world to save the lost through the power of his sinless blood. The woman became a member of the church. She began to follow the teachings of the New Testament. Her life became transformed by the power of Christ. Even with all of the tragedy and turmoil and grief the woman was able to recover. She even lived long enough to see some of her other children become Christians and share in her faith.
I can only imagine how this woman must have felt the first time she gathered with the church and partook of the Lord’s Supper. For her it must have been so entirely different, because she understood that the unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine represented the body and blood of Jesus, the very son that she had lost just outside Jerusalem on the cross.
Yes, I wonder, the first time Mary ever took communion, what must have been going through her mind. Overwhelming sadness? Unimaginable gladness? I don’t know. But I believe to her, knowing her son was risen, knowing he was in heaven, and knowing he was the reason she would also one day be there must have meant more to her than we could ever know or understand.
I can’t help but believe that EVERY time Mary partook of the Lord’s Supper it was just as meaningful as the first time. I don’t believe that this spiritual moment ever became any less to her. It never became ritualistic, mundane, or unimportant. I don’t believe she ever tried to take it right before she rushed from worship to go to some ball game her kids were playing on a Sunday morning. I don’t think she ever showed up to take it on a Sunday night in a corner class room just to make sure she got it in.
This communion was a representation of everything God’s son, her son, meant to her.
What does the Lord’s Supper mean to you?
“These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.”- Acts 1:14
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AUTHOR: Jeremiah Tatum
Photo background credit: Kurt Clark on Creative Commons
