Eat and Drink

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

I grew up in the Catholic church, so at the age of eight, I began receiving communion at least once a week depending on how many times we went to Mass.  There’s no doubt that over the years, I have taken communion for granted.

Even as an adult, worshipping in the Lutheran church, I don’t always stop to think about what I’m doing.  Once a month, I get up when instructed, eat the bread, drink the wine and sit back down.  Am I humbling myself before taking on the body and blood of Christ?  No.

Imagine what it must have been like for the disciples to receive their friend’s offering.  How special that meal must have been!  But because we weren’t there when Jesus broke the bread and took the cup, we may feel like we aren’t experiencing the same supper that Peter, John and the others did.  But we are!

Every time we accept the bread and wine, Jesus is with us.  Catholics and Lutherans believe that during communion, the bread IS Jesus’s body and the wine his blood.  They are not symbols, but the real deal.  That’s why it’s so important that we take time to pause and acknowledge what’s happening.  We are taking on Jesus.  He is becoming part of us and we are experiencing Him in a way that’s uniquely different than reading the Bible or praying.  This sacramental encounter has the power to transform us like no other.  We must not take it for granted.

Father, thank you for giving us your Son who died and offered us his body and blood.  May we remember how precious a gift the Eucharist is and acknowledge your presence.  “For when we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again” (Liturgy of the Eucharist).  Amen

Family Photos

Tell me if this is you: Friends invite you to their house for the evening and, before the night is over, you’ve perused the pictures that rest on their shelves and pondered and portraits that hang from their walls. For while an open door welcomes you into their house, it is the family photos that draw you into their life.

Even in our own home, family in frame calls us to pause and remembrance. Wooden edges encase memories of loving and living, of taking and giving; golden perimeters surround stories of coming and going, of aging and growing. We smile at goofy glasses and toothy grins, and we laugh at paisley polyesters and passé plaids. Some images return us to moments of joy, while some summon a lump to the throat, and still others remind us to forgive yet again.

The Bible tells us that Jesus “dwells in [our] hearts by faith.”¹ We are His home, for He resides in all who believe in Him and welcome Him in. No lens has captured His image, of course, but even as He lives with us and in us, we have a very special way to pause, remember what He has done, and take in all that He was and is and always will be: it’s called communion. When we break bread and partake of the wine together, we remember the One who instituted this outward sign of an inner grace. For as He held up the bread and lifted the cup, He declared His covenant with us and His presence in us until He comes again.

Then in renewed confidence, we go forth in the perpetual assurance that He goes in us. In fresh humility, we serve others in the knowledge it is He who works through us. In unity of the Spirit, we remember none of us lives alone, for He has made us to be one with each other—children of the same Father, united in His Son, all included in one family picture.

Father, thank you for sending us your Son. Grace us to live and serve as one, always remembering Jesus, who united us forever in Him. In His name and by the power of your Spirit, I pray. Amen.

Christ in me is life.

¹ Ephesians 3:17

Read Paul’s teaching on the Lord’s supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.