Communing With The Body & Blood of Christ

3.28.24 [1 Corinthians 10:16-17] River of Life (Maundy Thursday)

Take and eat. This is the body of Christ given for you. Take and drink. This is the blood of Christ poured out for you.

Jesus words of institution in Holy Communion are so very personal. And they’re meant to be that way. They are meant to foster a deep and abiding personal confidence in the reality that the Son of God died for your sins. Personally. For you. For the forgiveness of your sins.

But that powerful and personal proof of God’s power (Ps. 103:12) has removed your transgressions as far as east is from west was not designed to be an individual experience. It is personal. For you. But it is also communal. In his instituting of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus made that clear. (Mk. 14:24) This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. The upper room with a dozen disciples can hardly be described as many. But Jesus had a greater body in mind when he gave of his body and blood.

That’s why Jesus also ensured that the Apostle Paul received this Holy Meal. Though he was not among Jesus’ original twelve disciples—in fact, for a while he persecuted Jesus and his bride—the Lord gave Paul instructions about Holy Communion. Paul passed on these instructions to God’s people at Corinth who were struggling to understand the communal nature of Holy Communion. Listen to what he says:

1 Corinthians 10:16-17 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? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.

This bread, which is the true body of the living God, is also a participation in the body of Christ. This wine, which is the true blood of the very Lord who fashioned and made you, is also a participation in the blood of Christ. This meal is divine. So it should be no surprise God does divine things, God things, through this meal.

When we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we do not just receive a ritualized reminder that Jesus cared about us. We are participating in, communing with, and being connected to the body and blood of Christ. We are also being united together as the body of Christ. This meal is divine and God does divine things through it.

Tonight, none of us is receiving the Lord’s Supper for the very first time.

In fact, if I were to ask you to estimate how many times you have approached an altar like this and heard these words and received this bread and this wine, his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear you say that it’s been hundreds of times. For some of us, we have participated in the body and blood of Christ more than 1,000 times. What a divine privilege! What a gift from above!

But at times, we lose sight of that, don’t we? At times, because of our own busyness, we’ve come to the Lord’s house and been surprised to see the elements on his altar. There have been times, when because of our own carelessness, we have not done a very thorough job in examining our hearts, minds, and lives for why we need to eat and drink this Meal. There have been times when we have been more concerned about who isn’t gathered around God’s gifts of body and blood than those God is grafting us onto.

Our familiarity with this Sacrament can be leveraged by our sinful natures to lead us into conceited attitudes & even outright contempt.

That’s hard for us to see in ourselves. But we can see it in others. We can see contempt in those who deny that this Meal is anything more than a remembrance. We see conceit in those who challenge the idea that Christ is really present in this Feast. But we can be lulled into complacency thinking our place as people with the right doctrine automatically produces right attitudes and actions. That was the mistake Israel made with the heavenly bread God gave them.

At first, the idea of honey-sweet bread being showered upon the ground like morning dew was otherworldly. Divine. And God didn’t do it just once. He blessed them frequently. God gave them this manna (Dt. 8:16) to humble and test them (Ex. 16:4) to see whether they would follow his commands. God promised that (Dt. 8:16) in the end it would go well with his children so long as they were humble and faithful.

God’s instructions were simple and clear. Go out each morning and gather enough for your family for that day. On the day before the Sabbath, gather twice as much as you need because I don’t want you to go out and gather on the day I have made holy for your rest.

But not everyone listened. Some paid no attention to God’s command. They took more than they needed and found maggots in their leftovers the next day. Others woke up on the Sabbath morning and were surprised when there was no manna to be found.

But after a while, the people got the hang of things. Why gather more than you need if it’s not going to keep? Why go out and look for this manna on a day when God says he’s not going to provide it? Eventually this pattern developed their habits.

This pattern continued for forty years. Six days a week God opened the heavens and showered down honey-sweet bread. Each day, the needs of millions were met. But not all their wants.

Twice in the book of Numbers, we hear the children of Israel take what God gave them for granted. In Numbers 11, they began to crave other food. (Num. 11:6) We have lost our appetite. We never see anything but this manna! (Num. 11:4) If only we had meat! they wailed! Then in Numbers 21, we hear them complain: There is no bread…and we detest this miserable food! It’s easy to identify their foolishness, their selfishness, and their sin.

But don’t we do the same? When we want to see our congregation grow—especially numerically—sometimes it feels like being faithful to God’s Word creates more problems than it is worth. We can lose our appetite for this Meal, thinking we need something flashier, something more inviting, something different. Do you not see how obeying God’s commands channels potential participants to learn and trust his Word more and more?…To grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ?

God forbid we ever grumble & say we detest this miserable food, but do we ever disdain the fellowship boundaries the Lord sets for this Supper? When friends or family come into town on a communion Sunday, do we find ourselves more apt to skip a Sunday or try to reschedule their visit? Do we make someone else be the bad guy and tell them they can’t commune? When they ask us why our church does that, do we give a clear answer about what we believe and do? Or do we make Biblical teachings sound like political bureaucracy?

At times, we can treat this Meal worse than we do ones that are entirely unspiritual. Can you imagine a friend invites you over for dinner and you act like you’re Gordon Ramsey? Criticizing their menu choices and attacking how they made what they made. Anyone can see how rude that is! Are we doing any less when we think little of a worship service that features his Supper but not our choice of worship songs or sermon applications?

Can you imagine getting a wedding invitation for you and your spouse and then bringing your whole extended family without first seeking the approval & blessing of the bride and groom?

These actions are unthinkable, preposterous, and outrageous to us. And they should be. Why should our respect for this divine meal be less? This Meal is divine. It should be received that way. Because God does divine things, things only God can do, through it.

God does the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the most wonderful thing that people like us could ever have happen to us. God knows we are sick and struggling with our guilt, our shame, and our sin.

If you have ever spent more than a day in a hospital bed you know what it’s like to be stuck eating only hospital food. Imagine how much it would lift your spirits if your attending doctor brought you food from your favorite restaurant. God does even more.

God is not sending take-out when sin has you laid up on the couch. He is coming over and cooking his finest meal for you and joining you at the table. And he has poured more than his heart and soul into this meal. It is his very body and blood. Through humble actions like eating and drinking, God unites sinners like us with himself. What an honor! What a privilege! But God does more.

Through our eating and drinking, he heals us. The Holy God takes away our guilt and shame and forgives our sins. The Maker of heaven and earth refreshes us. The God of all comfort sets once-troubled consciences at ease for eternity. The Son of Man nourishes the new man he has created within us. The Valiant One strengthens us for battle against the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh.

And he gives us brothers and sisters in the battle to stand by our side. To bear our burdens. To call us to repentance. To assure us of the forgiveness of our sins. To help us serve when we are overwhelmed. To help us trust when we feel overcome. To warm our hearts when we are struggling to forgive those who have sinned against us.

So tonight we take and eat this bread, his true body, and we take and drink this cup, his true blood for the forgiveness of our sins. We are receiving something divine. We are participating in Christ’s body and blood. He makes us worthy and makes us his own. We eat and drink because the Son of God knows exactly what we need. His mercy and his grace. Tonight we commune together, receiving his body and blood, and are being united as his body, too. Because God knows we need each other. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. Amen.