Repetition is inescapable, and many who object to weekly
commemoration of the Lord’s sacrifice for us have no problem whatever
with comparable repetitions in other settings.
Christians who would object (loudly) to our recitation of the
Apostles’ Creed weekly—because it makes the words “meaningless”—have no
problem founding Christian schools where the students recite the Pledge
of Allegiance daily. Is that meaningless too?
When you ask a co-worker if he would like to go out for lunch
together, do you expect to hear that he doesn’t like to eat really,
because he doesn’t want it ever to become “routine.” Asked how often he
eats, he says that he likes to take a meal once a quarter, so that it
will remain “special.”
In the grip of such thinking, the absence of the Lord’s Supper is repeated also. Week after week, the Table is consistently not there. Does that become part of a routine?
The answer to faithless routine is not to abandon the routine, but
rather to embrace faith. To abandon routine is simply to establish
another routine, and if faith has not been exercised, it too will become
an idol. We are Christians; this is the Table of the Lord. We are to
put away our idols.
--Doug Wilson
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