The Lord’s Supper reveals that Jesus takes the worst we can do and makes it a sign of the best he does for us. Within hours of that meal in the upper room, Jesus’s body would indeed be given and his blood poured out. This dreadful tragedy accomplished our glorious salvation.
From the beginning, the early church recalled and reenacted these moments in gathered worship. Just two decades after Jesus’s death, Paul passed along what he had received as common understanding: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). In Communion, we enter both the power and the proclamation of Jesus’s saving death. That participation should be thrilling.
Contentious Meal
Sometimes, however, we get all tangled up about the Lord’s Supper. We can so easily miss the point of this practice Jesus gave to his people. The joyful expression of our union with Christ and one another becomes heavy with contentious questions.
For example, we puzzle over what happens to the elements. Jesus said, “This is my body” (Matthew 26:26; 1 Corinthians 11:24). We wonder how literally he meant it. We also stress over who may participate. Some ministers in my tradition seem to take more time talking about who may not partake than actually inviting believers into the life-giving mystery of the meal.
Then there are all the logistical issues. We worry whether the bread must be unleavened as in the Passover. Some insist the wine must be fermented, while others are adamant that grape juice will do. Common cup, individual cups, or intinction (dipping the bread in the cup)? Come forward or pass out?
And unless we are from a long-established liturgical tradition, we discuss frequency. Quarterly, monthly, weekly? Practically speaking, Communion takes away time from singing and preaching, so it can feel like a nuisance. Others worry that if we celebrate the Supper too often, it will become rote.
This cascade of questions can suck the joy out of this precious sacrament Jesus gave us. But perhaps if we dig under these encrusting controversies, we might once again reach the living heart of Communion. It’s really not that far away. We just return to that momentous night. We consider how Jesus draws humanity at its worst into the triune God at his redemptive best.
His Best in Our Worst
Jesus gives them the bread with the words, “This is my body” (Matthew 26:26). Then he shares with them the third cup of the Passover: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). The ancient symbols of bread and wine received new, deeper meaning in these moments. Jesus dared to make the sacred Passover meal find its true fulfillment in himself. The Lamb of God pledged himself to a new covenant that would be sealed in his blood. At the meal, Jesus offered himself to them — just minutes before the arrest that would lead to his trial and torture and death.
Jesus warns them that this night will bring them the shame of failing him. But in the glow of the meal, the disciples feel brave. “Peter said to him, ‘Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!’ And all the disciples said the same” (Matthew 26:35). Yet minutes later, when Jesus asks three of them to keep watch while he prays in his agony, he returns to find them sleeping. “So, could you not watch with me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40).
Soon, Judas arrives with the soldiers. “Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; seize him’” (Matthew 26:48). Moments before, those same traitorous lips had tasted the bread given by Jesus’s own hand. With that same mouth, he marks Jesus for death.
Before the mob, the bravado of Christ’s closest friends fades to fear. “Then all the disciples left him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). Even Peter would proclaim with an oath, “I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:74).
Jesus pledged himself in covenant as he gave them bread and wine. But the disciples’ eager participation in the moment only highlighted their weakness to come. Bread and wine would forever remind them of how they failed their Lord that night. They were unable to stop his body being seized and his blood being let.
And yet. One cannot steal what is already freely given. One cannot gain victory over another who has already submitted. The soldiers may have seized Jesus, but he had already given his will to the Father. Pilate may have condemned him, but Jesus had already submitted to the triune plan to defeat death by death. The disciples were never really the cause of anything. These tokens of suffering, betrayal, failure, and death would become everlasting signs of sovereign love. This is the heart of Communion.
Wonderful Exchange
Near the beginning of his brilliant explanation of the Lord’s Supper, John Calvin connects this sacrament with the heart of God’s gift to us in Jesus. He likens what Jesus underwent to a marvelous trade in which we are surprised beneficiaries.
This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that, accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; that receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.17.2)
Every Lord’s Supper, we come to the trading place. We come carrying our shame and guilt like Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, dragging the clanking chain of his sins. Yet at the Table, Jesus offers to break those chains. He wants to trade us. He’s ready to take our latest cowardly denial, drowsy inattention, outright betrayal, and embarrassing flight into self-protection. He remains the most extravagant trader. No four-year-old trading his leather baseball glove for a tattered comic book ever made a seemingly worse deal than Jesus. For out of the grace hoard of his complete atonement, Jesus swaps us.
Trade at the Table
Can you imagine Jesus at the Table? His eyes welcome you with love. They see all and yet beckon you to come closer. His smile opens an ocean of compassion. He speaks with startlingly ordinary words. “Drop that sack of shame right here. Take a hunk of my ever-renewing Bread of Life. Slide that bitter cup of stubborn unforgiveness my way. And pick up my cup. Gulp down the blood that cleanses not only all you’ve ever done but all that’s ever been done to you. Come on — trade me. This is for you, right now. Give me your worst. Receive my best. Take me — don’t wait. Let’s make a trade.”
It’s not only a matter of sins. We can bring all that weighs us down and offer it up. In Communion, Jesus nourishes us with himself, so we can receive any and all words he says into our personal situations. We bring our anxiety and listen to him saying, “My peace I give to you. . . . Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). We bring our tumults and trials and receive his words, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
We bring our sorrows from all the painful partings. He speaks, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). We carry up our despair over the state of the world and place it into his hands. He gives us the bread and cup with a promise: “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). We bring intractable situations to the one “who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens” (Revelation 3:7).
Heart of Communion
The heart of Communion is Jesus’s taking the worst, hardest, most baffling and defeating from us. He gives us his best — his way, truth, and life. For the bread reveals the Son of God who gave himself entirely and utterly for us. The cup offers the blood shed to take away every sin. The essence of the Lord’s Supper is Jesus offering in the present moment all that his incarnate life, death, resurrection, and ascension have accomplished.
Paul writes, “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). The mystery is the wondrous exchange whereby Jesus keeps on receiving us as his own and giving himself to us utterly and redemptively. This puts all the other questions, as important as they may be, in their proper place.
Desiring God