Monday, May 18, 2020

705 - Fellowship and Life


Spirituality Column #705
May 19, 2020
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Fellowship and Life
By Bob Walters

“And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it …” – Jesus, Luke 19:19
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood …” – Jesus, Luke 19:20

I was on the schedule at my church this past Sunday to present the “communion meditation,” a short homily preceding our weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

That schedule – published late last fall for our Traditional services in 2020 – was obviated (i.e., “blown to smithereens”) by the COVID-19 shutdown.  We still partake in the Lord’s Supper in our online service (at home) but with no Traditional service homily.

Months ago, pre-shut-down, I hit on an idea for the homily and made notes.  When my phone calendar chime reminded me last week to prepare the communion meditation, I dug out the notes and figured, column!  Here is my communion thought:

“The broken body and the spilled blood of Christ.”  That’s the phrase we hear so often as we encounter the Lord’s Supper, our commemoration of Jesus at the last supper in the upper room.  Jesus there instructed His disciples, going forward, to eat the bread and drink the cup “in remembrance” of Him.  In the ensuing hours, Jesus – the perfect and innocent lamb – would be arrested, tried, beaten, and crucified.  Jesus’s broken and bloody body hung on the cursed cross sacrificed to defeat death, forgive humanity’s sins, and complete His mission of salvation in perfect obedience to God. 

That’s a story we all know, but frankly I don’t always like the way it is told.  Jesus died a violent but purposeful death and his resurrection proved His truth.  But scripture tells us that Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, would have no “broken” bones (Exodus 12:46, Psalm 34:20, John 19:36).  And though Jesus bled, crucifixion is not a “blood” sacrifice – death comes from multiple trauma and agonizing asphyxiation on a “cursed tree.”

Listen closely to the words of Luke 19:19: “He took bread, gave thanks, and broke it.”  Jesus was breaking the bread of sustained fellowship with His disciples and instructing all believers for all time to remember and replicate the holy communion the disciples had with Jesus and each other. Fellowship, not brokenness, is the point.

And hear Luke 19:20: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood …”  Blood is the locus of life, we are taught in the Old Testament, and this new cup of Christ indicates not only His bloody death but the blood – the new life of faith – in the New Covenant.

Let us always encounter the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper with joy and fellowship, in both our communion with Christ and in loving each other.  Why would we celebrate a guilty remembrance of a brutal death, or a shaming reminder of our sins, failures, and fallenness?  When did Jesus say to believers, “Remember your guilt!”?

No!  In communion with the gracious, risen Christ we are to joyfully and properly share in his eternal gifts of hope and peace.  “Go and sin no more!” Jesus said.  In this supper we commemorate the glory and love of God, the perfect truth and obedience of Jesus, and the abiding comfort and peace of the Holy Spirit.  The bread and the cup remind us that we are Christians commissioned to shine Jesus’s light on mankind and that Jesus commanded us, as faithful servants, to love God and to love each other.

In a world where Satan’s darkness is close, we are citizens of a Heavenly light in communion with the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and each other.  Let’s remember that.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is fixed and gathered, not broken and spilled. He attends East 91st Street Christian Church, Indianapolis.

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