4.16-Easter Sunday and Every Sunday. Men oppress and Jesus sets free.

4.16

Easter Sunday

And Every Sunday

                What were the earliest rules and rituals that you can remember from church services as a child? I remember sitting in Bible class and watching the lips of my teacher who had red lipstick.  She spoke to us about God and the stories in the Bible that were so interesting. David and Goliath.  Daniel in the lion’s den and many more.  

Then when our class was over we went to the larger group.  There would be a man to get up and lead some songs. I don’t remember anything happening like this anywhere else except church.  Then a man would get up and teach or preach.  He would be confident and bold and quote scripture in the Bible or ask us to read it from the Bible.  This too was something a bit unusual in my experience. 

After the sermon something real unusual happened.  A man would walk up to the front with a couple of other guys and he would take off  the little table a white, starched table cloth and fold it very carefully and place it beneath the table. Then he would take a cracker and break it into two pieces and place it into two plates.  He would pray a prayer of thanks for God giving us this bread which “represented the body of Jesus Christ”.  Then they would pass out these two big crackers and the people would take a pinch of the cracker. The men would come back to the front. 

Then there two Garrett snuff glasses filled with Welch grape juice.  One of the men would say a prayer thanking God for the “fruit of the vine” that “represented the blood of Jesus Christ.”  Then they passed these two glasses around.  (A bunch of the members of the congregation dipped Garrett snuff and took a small twig and spread it around their mouth.  I supposed they might have cleaned up their mouth before Sunday Am services.) They had a lot of trust in each other to drink from that one cup.

Sometimes after church we would drive over to my Uncle Bob’s house and across the road was a cow pond or “pool” or “stock tank”.  There was mud and cows and manure.  We would all go out to the pool and sing a song, “O Happy Day”  Then a preacher would take one or more people with him out through the mud and manure and maybe with a cow not far away and he would say these words. “I baptize you in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.”  He would then put a handkerchief over the person’s mouth and nose and lay him/her back and immerse them in water and bring them up again and the audience again would start to sing, “O Happy Day that fixed my choice on thee my Savior and my God.  You taught me how to watch and pray and live rejoicing every day.  Happy day.  Happy day.”

Beautiful memories for me.

But there would come some problems

Do you know that some people made up rules that church had to have just one cup (though they had two) to drink from or it was not really a “true Christian” church?  Someone had invented individual communion cups.  Do you realize that the community must have wondered why this congregation couldn’t get along?  Men are prone to make rules where God didn’t make any rules.

Matthew 15.

⁹ They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.’^[c]”

I hope you can move beyond all the silly divisions in Christianity and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus this Easter morning.

Larry WISHARD

4.16.17