I remember my first day at a new school. The scariest moment: lunchtime. Who will I sit with? Does anyone want to eat with me? Or will I have to eat…alone? The people who choose to eat with you…they’re your friends. They’re the ones who accept you. Here’s the amazing thing. When Jesus asks, ‘Who will I sit with? Who will I eat with?’ He says…YOU. Jesus wants to eat with you. Because He accepts you. He loves you. And He wants to show you that, through the meal we’re going to share today.
He wants you to experience His acceptance and love. Not just as something you read about and hear about. But as something you SEE, TOUCH and TASTE. Here’s the big thing I want us to see: In and through this meal, Jesus is bringing us closer to Him and sharing Himself with us. So as well as giving us the Bible, Jesus gives us two gifts, which we call sacraments. Baptism…and Communion, the Lord’s Supper. They’re what the Bible calls ‘signs and seals’. That means they’re a picture, and a promise. As a picture, God uses them to SHOW you something. As a promise, God promises to GIVE you what it SHOWS you when you receive it in faith.
This meal points us back to the last Supper, eaten on the night Jesus was betrayed. Jesus was about to die for the sins of the world. And He wanted His friends to understand that. So what did He do? Did He explain it to them, with a talk? Yes, but not JUST a talk. He also gave them a meal. A special meal, which He commanded them to KEEP doing in memory of Him.
Broken bread, a picture of His body broken on the cross. Poured-out wine, a picture of His blood shed for our forgiveness. Powerful pictures. But not just pictures. They’re also promises. When we baptise or share communion, we’re not playing charades. These aren’t just props in a play. You don’t just LOOK at baptism water; you get soaked in it. You don’t just LOOK at the bread and the wine; you eat and drink.
That’s what I want us to see from our Bible reading. Paul is talking to the Christians in Corinth, who didn’t get it. They thought they could eat and drink this meal, and then live however they liked. But Paul is saying, NO. This is the Lord’s Supper. You are eating with Him, drinking with Him. That means you need to live His way. Paul says, ‘Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?’
In and through THIS meal, Jesus is bringing you closer to Him. So close that you are sharing in Jesus. That’s what ‘participating’ means: you are sharing in Him, taking part in Him. He is giving you Himself.
So this is no ordinary meal. When you eat THIS bread as part of THIS meal…physically, it’s still bread. But SPIRITUALLY, you are sharing in the body of Christ. His body, broken on the cross, was broken for YOU and you are receiving the benefits. When you drink THIS cup as part of THIS meal, physically it’s still wine. But SPIRITUALLY, you are sharing in the blood of Christ. His blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins, was poured out for YOU and you are receiving the benefits.*
In and through this meal, Jesus is bringing us closer to Him and sharing Himself with us. That’s why Jesus broke the bread and said, ‘this is my body’. And took the cup and said, ‘this is my blood’. To eat this bread is to share in His body, to drink this cup is to share in His blood. The bread and the wine don’t change. But WE DO. We are drawn closer to Jesus. Spiritually, we’re sharing in His body and blood.
Sometimes, when people say something is ‘spiritual’, they mean, ‘not real’. But I don’t mean that at all. The spiritual is the most real. So when I say ‘spiritually’…I mean, through the Holy Spirit, who is present with us and joins us to Jesus in the closest relationship.
And even joins US together. Through this meal, we are gathered together into one. Paul says, ‘Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.’ This meal makes us one body. The bread is broken, torn and shared. But as we eat it together, as part of THIS meal, our spiritual unity becomes visible. And the good news of Jesus, of His death that brings us life, of His resurrection that gives us hope, of His love which accepts us becomes something you can TASTE as well as something you hear.
Now, some of us here are thinking about following Jesus. But we haven’t said yes to Him, for ourselves. If that’s you, it’s wonderful you’re here. But please don’t eat and drink, because this meal is for those who are following Jesus. Come up and we’ll pray for you instead. But if you are trusting Jesus for yourself and have been baptised, this is your meal. God invites you to come. So come. Eat and drink, and remember that although the bread and wine won’t change…you and I will. We will be fed spiritually, and brought closer to Jesus. Sharing all He died to bring. Sharing all He has to give.
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Niv Lobo is a husband, a father and a Church of England minister and part of the team at Christ Church Cambridge.
Notes:
This was a talk I once gave to a group of young people at church. There’s so much I will have missed, but it’s my attempt to communicate what a treasure the Lord’s Supper is, and to unpack simply, and from an Anglican perspective, what it is we believe about this sacrament. The reading was 1 Corinthians 10:16-17.
If it feels incredibly vague to have said ‘the Anglican perspective’, what I mean by that is: the Eucharistic theology of the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion and the Ordinal.
*What I’m trying to convey here is something very precious, especially for those moments when we lack assurance and wonder whether God loves US. The Lord has given us two signs, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which by their very visible and external nature act as witnesses to our weary hearts and tender consciences of His grace. The way the Heidelberg catechism puts it (‘as surely as I receive from the hand of the one who serves, and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, given me as sure signs of Christ’s body and blood, so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood‘, question and answer 75) outlines a Reformed logic of how we can ‘take this holy sacrament to our comfort’. In this way, the sacraments are a word of the gospel (visible and tangible as well as audible), and can be a means of God’s grace.
This blog was first posted in Niv's reflections. Views expressed in blogs published by the Latimer Trust are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Latimer Trust
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