Communion. It sounds very spiritual and it is. It is also a very worldly word that we lean into all the time without even knowing it. Communion is shared experience. When we are at a football game or a baseball game we have communion with all the other fans. We share the experience. When we buy that latest Apple or Mac technological innovation we have a shared experience-communion-with all of the other consumers and users of that product. When a husband and wife make commitments to spend the rest of their lives together and consummate their vows on their wedding night they experience communion.
The thing that distinguishes Christian communion from all of these other forms is that not only is it a shared experience but it is a shared experience of a person. When Christians talk about Communion they are talking about their shared experience of the person of Jesus Christ. This shared experience is relived and remembered through taking something as mundane as bread and wine (or crackers and grape juice for those who abstain from alcohol ) and consuming it in remembrance of everything that Jesus has done for them. We take the bread as a representation of Jesus’ body that was broken for us on the Cross. We drink from the cup, and the wine or juice represents his blood that was shed for us. This is our shared experience of Christ. This is what Christians mean when they say Communion. –Ramon Mayo