Sharing more fully in the perfect communion of love
October 16th, 2022 – Communion Meditation
1 Corinthians 10:16-17 (NRSV) – “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
As we participate in Communion today, as we share the Lord’s supper together, let’s pause for a moment and think about what it means to commune with or to share with Christ. In this simple act of sacramental obedience, Christ gives Himself to us and we surrender more fully to Him. When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the penalty for all of the sins of all humanity for all time. As long as we’re on the earth and because we’re perpetually lacking and leaky, we need to be continually being filled with the Holy Spirit. God has provided for us through the sacrament of Communion. As we eat the bread and drink the cup, we mysteriously take into ourselves the body and blood of Christ, enabling us to share more fully in the perfect communion of love in the Holy Trinity. The very life of Christ is deepened in us. Listen to the words of Jesus in John chapter 6, responding to questions from the crowd who went looking for him after Jesus miraculously fed 5000 people with five barley loaves and two fish.
John 6 (NRSV)
v. 27 – “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”
v. 29 – “. . . This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
v. 32-33 – “. . . Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
v. 35-40 – “. . . I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.”
v. 44-51 – “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
v. 53-58 – “. . . Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took the bread and said, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (eat)
Again, Jesus took the cup and said, “This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (drink)
