A young Catholic wants to show his inquiring friend what the wafers used in the eucharist ceremony look like. Put aside for the moment that this isn't exactly the hardest thing in the world to find a photo of (hint: Google knows), and that a true believer would consider this a blasphemous thing to contemplate.
So he doesn't munch the cracker straightaway, he puts it in a baggie and shows his friend. Then he returns it. No harm, no foul? No, death threats. The local catholics have been paying too much attention to the islamists in the sandbox, I think.
Folks, let me spell it out for you: Jesus died ONCE, for ALL. Specifically spoken against in the Bible is the concept that he should be offered repeatedly for our sins. His flesh was dead, then alive again, then transformed the same way mine will be when He comes back for me. He doesn't have a body like we do anymore, ok? ok.
The confusion comes when you have people (Roman imperial government) trying to dictate what the Bible means, without the internal witness of the Holy Spirit to guide them (not Christians). The Lord Jesus said to eat his body. Then he passed around a matzo. An unleavened bread with stripes and piercings. Let me educate you on some Christian typology here.
Jesus said to take and eat, because the bread he was passing around was his body. He said this at a specific point during the Passover ceremony. The afikomen was being passed around. This is the matza that represents messiah. It is traditionally broken, wrapped in a napkin and hidden (Jesus was also broken, wrapped up and hidden, for 3 days). He said to take and eat the afikomen, that it was his body.
The afikomen was a type. Jesus commanded his disciples to eat it. He was telling them to do something specific: this do in remembrance of me. Not "eat my flesh every saturday", but "remember that I am the one who lived a sinless life, then was striped, pierced, buried, and resurrected.
It is a MEMORIAL service.
Of course, to the unsaved Jew, it is a source of confusion, and they are not above strawmen and hair splitting to get around this obvious type of Christ firmly planted in the middle of one of their most sacred traditions.
To a Christian and an historian studying the Jewish nations' activity through the centuries, this behavior is not a surprise.
Note: this is nothing against the Jew. They need Jesus just like the Gentile. Jesus was a Jew and a Christian who hates the Jew because he is one, is not only a jerk, he is disobeying the commands of God himself.
Note: The wine is also a type. Jesus said it was his blood then passed the cup of redemption. Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?
Hebrews 9:12 and 10:14 clearly show that Jesus was offered for us ONCE. The catholic church declares that he is offered tens of thousands of times every saturday. They say it is the same, actual, literal flesh and blood that were on the cross. They are mistaken. Jesus was offered once, and once is all that is required. The ONE sacrifice was sufficient ("there is therefore now no condemnation") to save us. If Jesus' death once weren't enough, then a weekly re-offering of His body is also not enough, and you have to add all sorts of works and sacraments and it STILL won't be enough. Don't complicate things unnecessarily, people. Also, don't worship idols. It's one of the commandments, remember? But since the bread and wine are literally t3h j3sVz, they are sacred and therefore they are WORSHIPPED. You are worshiping food dear faithful Catholic friend.
Don't get me started on praying to dead folks when God punished Saul for doing that thing (it's proscribed also you know), and over-reverencing a servant of God (Mary) as the Mother of God. There are a few dozen things the Holy Roman Catholic Church got wrong all the way, but they are for future articles.
Suffice it to say: you don't need to try to pry a piece of bread out of somebody's hand on the church sanctuary floor, and you don't need to give death threats about it.
Prepare your heart with prayerful consideration and repentance;
THEN
and ONLY then
"this do in remembrance of" Jesus.
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