The Lord's Supper

We Christians know "the Lord's Supper" -- Communion, whatever you might call it. Most of the world knows about our "sacrament" of the Lord's Supper. (The Roman Catholics have seven sacraments -- Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony. The Protestants typically only see two -- baptism and the Lord's Supper.)

Obviously "the Lord's Supper" was instituted by ... wait for it ... the Lord. (Doesn't take a super genius to figure that one out.) But just what does it mean? For the most part, that's pretty easy, too. First, it represents the Passover, the sacrifice of the Lamb that provides our forgiveness (1 Cor 5:7-8). But there is certainly more.

And He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me." And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood." (Luke 22:19-20)

The symbolism is clear. He broke the bread as a symbol of His body just as His actual body would be broken. In that sense, the bread represented His body broken on our behalf. He gave them wine, a product of crushed grapes -- grapes whose "life blood" were poured out for the wine -- as a symbol of His life blood being poured out for us. This isn't vague or difficult to follow. All of that is connected to the Passover, the first symbol in play, where the lamb was sacrificed (body broken) and the blood was placed on the door frame to save the Israelites from death. This is all pretty clear.

The symbolism, then, is that Christ died for us -- actually, physically died -- so that His blood would atone for our sins (Rom 3:25; Eph 1:7; Col 1:19-20; Heb 9:13; Heb 13:10-12; Rev 7:14 et. al.). Thus, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). Absolutely critical.

But, wait. What's this "eat and drink" thing? There are skeptics (quite uninformed, obviously) who argue that Christ taught cannibalism. We discard that out of hand, but what is the symbolism? We get the symbolism of the Passover lamb. We get the symbolism of the broken bread and crushed grape. What's the idea behind eating it?

Well, first there is the sense of "participation." Paul wrote, "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? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor 10:16-17). And that's the basic idea, isn't it? Second, there is the concept of nourishment. We eat and drink for physical nourishment. We eat His "body" and drink His "blood" for complete spiritual nourishment. Of course, in that physical meal there is enjoyment and in this spiritual meal there is enjoyment. Finally, the sharing of this process is exactly like a family meal. We use the word "communion" to express the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings. In this Communion we are sharing with each other this singular relationship with Christ. Like a family, believers that share Christ's body and blood together retains a better interconnection than those that don't.

In the end, this whole "Lord's Supper" thing is a nearly complete picture for us. We have the broken body and shed blood of Christ given freely for us. We have the partaking of that sacrifice made on our behalf. We have nourishment from Him and communion with each other. A complete synopsis of the Christian life. And you thought it was boring.