While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. (Mark 14:22-24)
Bread and Wine (Grape Juice)
The bread and the wine which we receive in the Eucharist, in the Holy Communion, makes both past and future present. The past is present because the bread and the wine are ontologically the body and blood of the suffering Jesus on Calvary 2,000 years ago. The future is present because the communal fellowship proleptically anticipates the eschatological banquet celebrating the New Creation, the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God yet to become incarnate.
Holy Communion as Community
Sometimes I open my eyes while sitting in the pew prior to going up to the altar to receive the Eucharist. What a sight, this communion! It is my heart that is watching the drama set before me.
I know these people. They are my people. A visitor might notice the hair styles or the manner of dress or something superficial. But I think about each individual ascending and descending those chancel steps, sharing the bread and the wine.
One man, a widower, I know is aching inside from loneliness. I recognize another man about my age. His father died last month, just as mine did. I see a lovely family lined up at the communion rail, knowing that they are beset with a partially autistic child that will require an extra measure of parental patience. I observe a woman, whom I called on just a few weeks ago in the hospital, suffering from cancer. She’s wearing a wig to hide her loss of hair. The granddaughter of another elderly widow was recently in an auto accident and lies in a coma, not expected ever to recover. I wonder if grandma is thinking about that now? Still another woman, so full of life and affection, has found it hard to stick to her own marriage bed. She kneels. Whether she asks for forgiveness or not, I don’t know. Maybe she prays for still more tenderness. Either way, there is beauty in her tragedy. Then there’s the widow I call “Mom,” whose elephantiasis prevents her from even walking to the communion rail. The pastor carries the elements out to her in her pew. If pain could be measured by the ounce, our chancel would sink into the earth from the tonnage it supported this morning.
Yet, the communion service was born out of pain, God’s pain shared with us. It is for people in pain that we have the Eucharist. It is a sacrament. It binds together all the pain of the world and transmutes it through promise into the power of new life.
“This is my body.”
In James Russell Lowell’s “The Vision of Sir Launfal,” Jesus is speaking and announces that the Holy Grail has been found. It sits on our altar.
This crust is My body broken for thee,
This water His blood that died on the tree;
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In what so we share with another’s need;
Not what we give, but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me.
PRAYER
Oh Christ, you are present in the bread and wine of communion; bind us to you and to one another, that we might share not only your body and blood but also your glorious and victorious resurrection. Amen.
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Ted Peters is a Lutheran pastor and emeritus seminary professor. He is author of Short Prayers and The Cosmic Self. His one volume systematic theology is now in its 3rd edition, God—The World’s Future (Fortress 2015). He has undertaken a thorough examination of the sin-and-grace dialectic in two works, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (Eerdmans 1994) and Sin Boldly! (Fortress 2015). Watch for his forthcoming, The Voice of Public Christian Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.
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