Christian Churches of God
No. 103B
Procedures
for the Lord’s Supper
How
to partake of the Lord’s Supper in the absence of an Elder
(Edition 2.1
19960323-19991008-20070919-20190601)
This paper provides information for individuals who are unable to attend with a group during Passover.
Christian Churches of God
Email: secretary@ccg.org
(Copyright © 1996, 1998, 1999,
2007, 2019 Wade Cox)
This paper may be freely copied and distributed provided it
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Procedures
for the Lord’s Supper
If you are eligible to take the Lord’s Supper, but you are unable to meet at a designated locality with one of God’s churches at the prescribed time, you may observe it alone or with a group of other eligible members.
Prepare for the Lord’s Supper by purchasing Jewish Matzoth or Matzos at any grocery store or bake unleavened bread for yourself. This is made with no yeast, soda, baking powder or any other leavening agent. Rye-Vita or similar unleavened biscuits may also be used.
Purchase a bottle of red wine, preferably of good quality. Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz is ideal. Do not use wines fortified with grape spirit etc., such as sherry or port.
Grape juice was never used at the Passover season by any Jews or Israel, including Christ, the Apostles or the New Testament Church. The teaching of the sects of recent centuries is a perversion of the truth. Grape juice could not be preserved under those conditions. It is dead, whereas wine has life and symbolises the living blood of Jesus Christ as a man.
Preparing for the Lord’s Supper Service:
The Lord’s Supper should not be eaten inside your dwellings. It should be taken outside your dwellings or usual place of abode, as is the next evening, the Passover (or the Night To Be Much Observed) in accordance with Deuteronomy 16:6-7 (see the paper The Night to be Much Observed (No. 101)). Those too ill to move may remain in their own homes.
The service is to be conducted in due solemnity. However, it is not a service that forbids speech to one another. The head of the family, or nominated person for a larger gathering, is to conduct the service. The Lord’s Supper service is available on tape and the service is printed in the paper The Lord's Supper (No. 103), which should be followed in the conduct of the service.
This is a very important memorial service of the Last Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ before he was sacrificed as the Passover Lamb for the next evening – the Night To Be Much Observed – which is the second night of the Passover season (Ex. 12:8-11; Deut. 16:6-7). This is the Passover proper of the Exodus and the night that Israel was spared by the destroying angel.
None of the bread and wine used in the
service of the first evening can be left until
the morning as it must be destroyed if not consumed. The Passover Meal of 15 Abib
is not a sacrifice but simply a commemorative meal as the Night of Observation.
How to proceed without Paper No. 103:
If the study paper is not available to read from, the head of the service should read the appropriate Scriptures from the Bible. That person should read Luke 22:7-8,14-15; then Matthew 26:17,26-30; then proceed to 1Corinthians 11:23-30 and then to John 13:1-17.
The foot-washing should then be conducted if two or more baptised people are present. Where multiple people are present they should be divided according to sex and placed apart. Individuals, of course, are not concerned with this matter. On completion, the room should be reorganised.
The bread and wine are then exposed, and the person conducting the service is to give thanks and ask the blessing on the bread, as a symbol of the body of Jesus Christ, breaking it into pieces and having it distributed to those present. Each then consumes the bread in silent contemplation.
The person conducting the service then prays over the wine, giving thanks and asking for it to be blessed as a sacred symbol of the blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for the remission of our sins. The wine is then passed in the individual glasses and drunk as a symbol of the renewal of the acceptance of the blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin.
The glasses and the unused bread are then replaced on the tray and table and re-covered with the serviette or napkin.
The person conducting the service should then read aloud portions from John 13:18 to John 17:26. For, after these words were uttered by Christ, he then left for the garden and was seized to be taken and crucified. The person conducting the service may read passages of the sections if that is desired. If there are enough present a hymn should be sung.
The individuals may then disperse to their temporary accommodation.