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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