HOLY COMMUNION

It was on Holy Thursday (AKA Maundy Thursday) of his last week that Jesus instituted his Lord’s Supper which has also become known as Holy Communion, the Eucharist or the Mass. It was his replacement of the Passover which was celebrated annually to remind the Israelites of their divine deliverance from slavery in Egypt through the judgment of the avenging angel and the blood of the lamb. The Sacrament of his Body and Blood has taken many forms from the elaborate liturgies of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches to the simple distribution of the elements in Baptist congregations. Having been raised in the tradition of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church I find the need to recover the meaning of the Sacrament for my own soul’s health. Since Jesus told us to do this in remembrance of him by partaking of his Body broken and Blood shed for us I find great comfort and strength in participating regularly and taking seriously its importance. This means that I need the celebrants to officiate in the Lord’s place as host with reverence and to avoid flippancy because they are handling sacred things.

The bread and wine while remaining the same substance (I do not believe in transubstantiation) become a means of grace when we eat and drink with faith in the benefits of Christ’s death on the Cross. Bernard of Clairvaux compares them with instruments of investiture, (into lands, honors, dignities,) which are significant and emblematical of what they belong to and are at the same time means of conveyance. They are instruments to convey those rights, privileges, honors, offices, possessions, which silently they point to. They are, after consecration, set aside for holy purposes, called by the names of what they are pledges of, and what they legally and are ordained to convey. In themselves they are bread and wine from first to last; but while they are made use of in the holy service, they are considered as standing for what they represent. They convey the right, title or property to the reality they represent, as a deed does.

When we eat the bread and drink from the cup we participate in the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor.10:16). They symbolically grant and convey what they represent. The unworthy communicant is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord and thereby eat and drinks judgment on himself (1 Cor.11:27,29). He is guilty of profaning holy things by his lack of faith and reverence in the sacrifice of Christ, which atoned for our sins and made available to us by the Holy Spirit. By his death on the Cross Christ delivered us from death and daily nourishes us in eternal life. When we eat the bread and drink the cup we are put in remembrance of his death and his desire to increase in us all the benefits of our salvation through faith and the Holy Spirit. We are made partakers of Christ’s heavenly life into a closer union with him by receiving all that he offers us. As I eat the bread and drink of the cup I pray that I will be filled with the fullness of Christ’s lifegiving redemption by his Spirit and live by his grace, love and power over sin and weakness. Come into my heart Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in to stay.