Written by: Pastor Nathan Swenson-Reinhold
Reading: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
I love to eat with people. I love to do lunch with people. I enjoy people. I enjoy people even more when it involves food. Call it wiring...call it what you will...people and food go together. There’s an old adage: “Where there is food, there is community.” This is of course exactly what’s going on when we gather together for communion. The “meal of messiah” becomes the “meal of the people of the Messiah” ... a community formed around Jesus’ death and resurrection. Enemies are reconciled. Friendships are renewed. Healing is wrought. Relationships are strengthened. This is comm-union, literally “with unity.”
Paul commends to us the Lord’s Supper not because he (or Jesus for that matter) wanted to give us another empty ritual, but because he felt that the things that we DO and in fact do together in community should point to Jesus. And the Last Supper, the Lord’s Supper, does just that. It allows us, in unity, together, to point to Jesus.
Communion...the Supper of our Lord isn’t just a biblical command. It’s also the point of the Church. WE are the community that gathers, and in our doing so, points to God’s love revealed in Jesus. This Lent, it’s good to be the Church.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for gathering a people of a thousand agendas and focusing our purpose on a single thing: witnessing your death and resurrection. As I gather with others, may the bread I break and the community built there always point to you. Amen
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