The Truths We Eat

Several months ago I received a text from my mom during church. “Call me as soon as the service is over, please.” I had a hunch it was about Grandma.

A few days prior, the doctor had told us she had at most two weeks left to live. I planned to see her that afternoon and again the following Thursday to get in some final quality time. 

I called my mom during the next service and heard the dreaded words. “Hey honey, Grandma passed this morning.” As far as we can tell, she stepped out of bed and fell down dead. The breath simply left her body. She was 93. 

Several minutes later, I was receiving the Eucharist (the meal of “thanksgiving”) through tears. I had never before been so thankful for this particular truth that the Lord’s Supper proclaims: that we are united to all the saints living and dead—including Grandma. 

By God’s profound love and grace, I was able to eat my comfort. My grandma is with the Lord, and I, too, will be with them both. 

It got me thinking, “What are the truths we eat every time we take the Lord’s Supper?” And furthermore, what do we gain by keeping these truths in mind while we partake? Here are seven answers. 

1. Christ’s body was broken for our healing

The paramount truths of the Lord’s Supper are in the words of institution: “This is my body, broken for you.” Embedded within are two proclamations. 

First, the bread is Christ’s body (really, mysteriously, spiritually). It is our spiritual food. We intake his body, which is our participation in him:

“The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16)

“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53–56)

While remembering Christ is certainly part of the Lord’s Supper (“do this in remembrance of me”), the meal is more than remembrance. The meal enacts our participation in him. 

The second proclamation is that his body broken is our healing:

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” — Isaiah 53:6 

So the Lord’s Supper is healing participation in the body of Christ. The piercing of Christ’s flesh was divine surgery performed for our healing. The meal proclaims this to us. 

Why do we do well to remember this? There are many reasons. One, we are prone to look elsewhere for healing. True healing is in the broken body of Christ. Two, it is grace. We are undeserved recipients of Christ’s broken body. Three, it is love. For love Christ gave up his body. So when you eat the meal, you eat the truth of Christ’s self-giving, healing love for you. We may come to the table doubting God loves us, but he assures us he does by serving us his very own Son. When we chew it, it eats at our doubts. 

2. Christ’s blood was shed for our forgiveness

The words of institution contain the other paramount truth: “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28).

This is probably the most familiar truth of the Lord’s Supper: it proclaims our forgiveness. Just as the shedding of blood (of goats, bulls, and rams) atoned for sins in the Mosaic covenant, so too in the new covenant: but now through the perfect, once-for-all shedding of the eternal Son of God (Hebrews 9), the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). 

When Moses first enacted the covenant, he literally splashed the people with blood (Exodus 24:8). It was visceral. God proclaimed his covenant through a sin they wouldn’t soon forget. 

So too, for you. As you feel the wine go down your throat and know that it is real—you are not imagining the sensation; it is actually happening—so your forgiveness is not imagined. It is as real as blood hitting your face. 

3. Christians continually repent

Growing up, this was the primary emphasis my church placed on the meal. Communion was a solemn event. Each person would take the bread and cup in their hand and spend time reflecting on their sins before partaking. 

This is in keeping with the command attached to the words of institution in 1 Corinthians 11: 

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

Self-examination follows naturally from considering what the meal proclaims: Jesus’ sacrificial death for sins. 

To take the meal in an unworthy manner—with no thought of your sin, no sincere confession and repentance—is somewhat like taking a bride while having an affair. Your pledge of fidelity, of belonging to your bride, is nullified—mocked, even—by your persistent infidelity. 

Marriage is a covenant. The Lord’s Supper is a covenantal meal. It belongs to those in the covenant, and that covenant has terms. We can no more lop off this aspect of the covenant than a husband can insist that he marry his bride while maintaining whatever affairs he wishes.  

There is also a happy side to this. As you discern the body, you also call to mind with happy memory those in the body: your dear friend across the country, persecuted Christians overseas, your late grandmother. So sharing the loaf is both correction and consolation. Don’t take it an unworthy manner, certainly, but also take it in joy, love, and purity. Smile at the saints. 

4. We belong body and soul to the Lord

With this truth we burrow further into the essential mystic quality of the Lord’s Supper: it is an act of participation in Christ. This is why it is often called communion: the meal is our communing with Christ. 

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16)

I had a professor in college compare communion to marital sex: it is not only an act of consumation, but of continual participation. As intercourse enacts your union with your spouse, so the meal enacts our union with Christ. We are one in body and spirit with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15–17). 

There are many implications of this (some treated below), but I want to focus on how Paul primarily applies the truth in 1 Corinthians: because we belong to Christ, we ought not sin. On either side of 1 Cor 10:16, Paul writes, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry,” and “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.”

It is important we continually commune with our savior. Would you have sex with your spouse only once? Hopefully not. Would you persist in sinning against your spouse when regularly enjoying the intimacy of sex? You are less likely to, for the act tells you who you are: you are hers, and she is yours. So it is with the meal. It proclaims that we belong body and soul to the holy Lord, and that we ought to walk in holiness—and in fact, his holiness makes us holy, because we are joined to him by the Spirit for our salvation. 

5. We belong body and soul to all saints everywhere

Contextually speaking, the main sin Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians 11 is division in the church. 

When you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? 

Why does division around the meal despise the church of God? Because the church of God is one. 

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17) 

There is both a local and universal quality to this truth. Locally, it means you share each other’s problems. Someone in your church hungry? That’s your hunger. Is someone in your church in pain? That’s your pain. Is someone rejoicing? That’s your joy. When we share the meal together, we ought to imagine each of us pulling a cart with various burdens and joys, and that whatever is in that cart is for me to care for as a member of the body. 

Universally, this means we commune with all the saints everywhere, at all times. There is one loaf: Jesus Christ the Lord. The apostle Paul partook of this bread. Saint Augustine partook of this bread. Theresa of Avila partook of this bread. Aquinas, John Calvin, Jacobus Arminias, Billy Graham. My grandma. 

This is a joy. The meal tells you that you are part of one big awesome eternal family. You are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. 

This is also a challenge. Consider the breadth of disagreement represented in just this list. You share Christ with more people than you could possibly imagine, whose opinions may baffle or even enrage you. Total agreement on all things is not a prerequisite for sharing the meal. Baptism into Christ is the prerequisite. 

The irony of the Lord’s Supper is that, doctrinally, it has been one of the biggest sources of division. Churches have split over this meal so many times the one loaf has become crumbs—an unruly food fight, if you will. It should not be this way. The meal is ours to honor, and the unity it preaches is ours to keep. 

6. Christ will come again

The words of institution end, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

When we eat our humble little meal, we are proclaiming three cosmic truths about Jesus in history:

Christ has died. 

Christ is risen. 

Christ will come again—to judge the living and the dead. 

How does the meal proclaim this? It says that we are participants in a living body, spiritually and mystically joined to Jesus. Where is Jesus? He is in heaven, seated at the right hand of God. He is depicted in Revelation as judge and warrior and lion and lamb. He is the vindicated, risen one, whose tongue is a sword ready to enact judgment on the world—salvation for all who believe and our baptized, damnation for all who deny his lordship. (By the way, this is why many churches “fence the table,” or instruct anyone not baptized to withhold from partaking.)

Yes, as we sit quietly chewing our bread and sipping our wine, we proclaim that we not only submit ourselves to this king, but we find ourselves in him. We have come under his lordship by coming into his body—through his own gracious invitation. 

Why does this matter? For one, it is proclamation. It is visible confession that we believe in a crucified, risen, victorious Lord. It tells the world, “Pay attention! This meal is the beginning and end of all things.” But it also proclaims that truth to ourselves: your whole life is caught up in this meal. The death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the return of Christ—your life is located between these all-transforming realities. The meal grants you perspective on your life, helping you to live faithfully, patiently, joyfully, expectantly. 

7. We will always be with the Lord 

Because we are one body with the Lord, and the Lord is eternal, we will always be with him. Always. And we will be with him together. 

The meal pictures this. When we come around the wine and the bread, we are really coming to 

Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22–24)

Woah.

One day, the meal will be transformed. The simple meal of bread and wine will be no more, and we will feast at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. No more hunger. No more pain. No more sin. No more division. 

No more death. 

We will feast in the land of the living. This is the good news of the meal. 

In our church, we go straight from the meal to doxology. And how could we not? The truths of the meal are so profoundly comforting, so magisterial, so full of grace, that they demand a response of praise. Through tears of joy I sang these words on the morning my grandma died:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise him, all creatures here below
Praise him above, you heavenly host
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Amen. Amen.