The shared meal has always been about more than just sustenance – it tells the story of our lives, our relationships, our traditions and beliefs. For Christians, no meal carries more meaning than Communion. Around that table, we walk with Jesus from Creation to Consummation, through triumph and tragedy. Yet how often do we truly comprehend the bread and cup?
Today we embark on a journey through Scripture’s banquet hall to taste afresh manna not of this world. Come, break bread with Christ and me as I unveil the mystery and majesty of Communion – its roots in God’s lavish hospitality, its fruit on our tongue of forgiveness, its summons to unity in the kingdom still unfolding before us.
- Communion/Lord’s Supper is the physical meal that signifies Jesus has made a covenant to nourish us with his presence and forgive us of sin until he comes again.
- It uses physical elements of bread and wine/juice to represent Jesus’ body and blood in a covenant relationship with believers.
- The Bible tells the story of God’s relationship with humanity through significant meals from Creation to the final Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
- When believers celebrate communion, they are remembering and proclaiming Jesus’ death, experiencing Christ’s spiritual presence through the Holy Spirit, and participating in the one body of believers united in Christ.
- There are different views on how Christ is present (transubstantiation, consubstantiation, memorialism, spiritual presence), but the pastor emphasizes the remembering and spiritual presence views.
- Communion signifies believers’ oneness in Christ as his bride and reinforces the call to be reconciled with one another as the body of Christ.
As you partake once more of the bread of life and cup of salvation, may you savor Jesus anew. May the presence he promised by his Spirit renew your faith, stir your hope, kindle your love. And when you rise from this table, go in peace to serve the King. Proclaim with your lives the death he died, commune as one in his body wherever two or three are gathered. Break bread in remembrance still until that day when the wedding feast begins and we feast with Christ forever, satisfied at last in the light of his face.
Until then, beloved, go in his grace, strengthened by meal and mission to live as those for whom heaven and earth have become one in him.