A Funeral for Jesus: Christmas Eve Communion

I just got back from attending a Christmas Eve service at an evangelical church. The focus of the service was the birth of Christ (obviously), and one of the major events in the service was communion. The goal of such a service (in my opinion, at least--but I hope it is shared!) is to celebrate with others in the faith and rejoice at the birth of a miraculous occasion--the birth of the Messiah, the Savior of the world! However, to be honest, the service gave me little of that impression.

First, I must begin by saying that it's not necessarily the fault of the specific church I attended. I have a feeling that I could've gone to a number of churches and experienced the same thing. Also, it's not that the Christmas message (a joyful one!) wasn't properly conveyed. The Biblical story was shared, and the story of the candy cane was even told (a quaint one). My main frustration has little to do with Christmas implications, actually, and more to do with the communion service in general.

Why is it that Christians insist on being gloomy during communion? Why do we put on sour faces, play dismal organ music, eat stale wafers and drink juicy juice in remembrance of our Savior? It just doesn't make any sense to me. I highly doubt that's how it was in the upper room when the disciples celebrated the passover with Jesus.

Personally, I think much of the confusion has come from a passage in 1 Corinthians 11 (verses 17-33). In the passage, Paul has much to say about celebrating the Lord's Supper. I won't take the time or room to paste the Scripture here, but I suggest you read it to refresh your memory. Paul's infamous warning to the Corinthians is this:

...whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself (verses 27-30).

I would venture to say it's this passage that makes for the dismal, funereal communion services with which most of us are accustomed. People are fearful of "eating or drinking judgment" on themselves, and rightly they should be--especially if they are involved with the kind of things Paul speaks of in the rest of the passage. (Soapbox: context is so important!) He speaks of divisions in the church, of people getting drunk, of some people overeating while others went hungry, and etc. They had no consideration for each other, and they were not esteeming the memory of Christ. In this way, he says, people were "[despising] the church of God" (verse 22).

I think communion should be a wonderfully joyful celebration. I think it should be a meal (note: an actual meal, not just crackers and grape juice) with fellow believers in which the gospel is proclaimed and people rejoice. I think that was probably the goal of the Corinthians--but the true intentions of the meal had obviously been perverted, which prompted Paul to write his words of warning in his letter to them. Granted, logistics might make an actual meal hard for a large church to accommodate, but I think it could be done. And I think proper celebration would be well worth the effort.

I'm interested in your thoughts. What do you think?