As many of the men keep reading through Live Not by Lies there is more and more emphasis on how small groups kept many believers living under totalitarian regimes not safe but sane. Though everything was crazy outside, there was some normal, some reality, and even some freedom inside. The friendships and fellowship and the freedom to live were crucial not just so that The Faith, as in Christianity, could continue but so that Christians themselves could continue.
Our church is too large to be called a small group, and we have not been driven underground. But in many ways it is still crazy “outside,” and our fellowship is in faith and for our faith. We re-member (that is, all the members meet as one body) each week to remember the eternal work of God in time, His loving power and righteous kindness and the good news of Christ’s death for sinners. We are reminded of our unity with Christ and our unity with His Body.
If “modern liberalism’s goal” is “to free the individual from any unchosen obligations” (Dreher, Location 548), the goal of this Supper is to point us to the Savior who frees us from the burden of guilt and the anguish of separation.
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16–17)
This Supper is a sharing of lives, a present participation that is a life-sustaining good.