Source.
While the sacrament of communion or the Eucharist — which is present in many Christian denominations and involves consuming bread and wine in remembrance or exaltation of the body and blood of Jesus Christ — has shifted in presentation and delivery over the centuries, most contemporary churches have similar systems.
Parishioners may be called to the pulpit to receive bread or a wafer from a church leader and to drink from a common cup of wine or — in the case of some more conservative denominations — grape juice. Alternatively, deacons may pass around a tray of wafers or small hunks of bread, followed by small disposable cups of juice. This is a common enough approach that most religious goods stores carry specific communion trays with slots for 1-ounce cups.
However, in the age of megachurches — as well as that of a global pandemic, which caused many churches to reconsider the sharing of bread and use of a common cup — an alternative delivery system for the Eucharist has increased in popularity in recent years. And it’s something of a booming business.
These days, when attendees enter Southeast, they’re guided to a row of long tables filled with small, plastic two-packs of wafers and juice. These aren’t a new product, but they have been primarily used to deliver the sacrament to individuals who are hospitalized or otherwise infirm, or when worshiping outside the walls of a physical church. When indicated by leadership from the pulpit, worshipers serve themselves and eventually dispose of the cups and wrappers in the large recycling cans that are now stationed outside the sanctuary doors.
You can read Kenneth Gentry’s book on wine for yourself. Nothing irks me more than Christians who think they’re holier than God. In the time in which the NT was written, refrigeration didn’t exist. Any grape juice quickly turned into wine. And if you want to somehow figure out an engineering solution to that dilemma (refrigeration didn’t exist until Carrier), you have to deal with Deuteronomy 14:26-27, and tell me how the term “strong drink” can be interpreted in any fashion than one which can make you inebriated if abused. And just to be sure not to neglect those among us who rely on tithes, Moses makes sure we invite our local pastor when consuming wine.
Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do with your life, nor do I have strong opinions about the modern practice of using pre-packaged do-dads for communion. But Jesus instituted His supper with wine and unleavened bread, and that’s the way it should be taken. To say that conservative churches sometimes use grape juice means only that they are in slavery to the temperance movement created by do-gooder social gospel ladies in northern churches.
I recall a lecture by R.C. Sproul once in which a student asked him why we couldn’t take the Lord’s Supper with crackers and coke. Sproul screamed, “Because Jesus didn’t institute it with crackers and coke. He used wine and unleavened bread.”
