The Basics of Church

For those who do not speak Dutch, our church has a sort of interpretation system. An interpreter sits in the back and whipers into a microphone the translation of the sermon for the Sunday service. Well, this last Sunday morning the only translator had Sunday School session and so we were told that we "are on our own" to understand the Dutch message. Now, since we are "not quite fluent" (a generous way of saying we still don't understand much) we pretended confidence and sat straining to catch any terms we might understand. In truth, Jeremy is doing much better than I am at understanding, and I can not speak for him, but I only got the very basics of what was being said. But as I sat there and passed the trays of actual bread pieces and minature grape juice cups, I comtemplated the message and tried to string together the words I understood and match them to the passages in the Bible that I thought they were referencing, I realized that you can bring Christianity to the very basics and still get all the important stuff to apply to your own life. This was the most clearly illustrated to me during communion. As the speaker began to introduce the communion service, he quoted what Christ said about communion - all I understood were 3 words 'eten, drinkt, denk' which is "Eat, Drink and Think." Knowing the scripture he was quoting, I was able to put together the context and knew it was talking about where Jesus said, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, remember me" which everyone quotes before communion. But I just kept thinking of the simplicity of the three words I understood. To me it really qualified how we should live our lives each day - Eat, Drink, and Think. It was more than just a command of the communion service - it became relevant to every day. Jesus said as often as you eat and drink you should remember him (think). I know that we eat and drink all the time, so we should think about the sacrifice Christ made, not just when we sit to eat the communion bread and drink the juice, but in life to eat, drink and think about who Jesus is to you and how that affects your life. So I say to you in 3 words, that you may not fully understand but which encapsulate my challenge to you in the very basic of terms - today: "eten, drinkt, en denk."