Brothers and sisters, God is among us as we eat and drink with His beloved Son. The gospel was heard and now the gospel is eaten and drunk! Herein is truth, that Christ has provided eternal food and drink for his people so they may never hunger or thirst. We, who have already fallen on our faces before God and worship Him now feast with Him. We who have died with Christ have also been raised with Him. So this meal is for the church, but it is a prophetic meal to the world also. When we eat we say to the unbelieving world that only here can you find the Christ who satisfies your hunger and when we drink we say that only here can you find the Christ who satisfies your thirst. So let us eat and drink for our sakes and for the sake of the world. Amen.
Communion Meditation: Food as Proof of God’s Love
Note: Incidentally, this is also a subtle proof for weekly communion.
Food reveals the nature of God. God is a God of abundance. He is a provider. But food also reveals the nature of man. Even the smallest infant knows instinctively that food is life, and the creation account shows that even unfallen Adam had to eat. The Lord’s Table is a continual reminder that we are a needy people. Were we not needy, God would rarely if ever provide this table for us, but since we are needy, He provides it weekly, and we partake of it gladly.
{For further study, see Leithart’s article Love Made Food in Blessed are the Hungry}
Communion Meditation: Resurrection Food
This new Narnia is more real than Narnia itself. We may be human now, but at the resurrection we will be fully human. The Lord’s Supper is practice for full humanity. We are eating bread and wine given to us by a resurrected Lord. This is part of the abundant life he has given us, that we should partake even in our corruptible body of heavenly food. Come, let us dine!
Communion Meditation: Give us, Our Daily Grace
“We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, Amen.” This is our Creed. In eating and drinking with one another we are affirming that we all believe that same promise. We are affirming that full resurrection is promised. But we also affirming that our weak bodies need food. We are affirming that a body without grace is an incomplete body. Therefore, God brings us to taste of his means of grace, and he does it through the act of eating and drinking: the most common of our daily activities. He does this so we may always be reminded that just as food is a daily necessity, so too is the grace of God a daily necessity. Come, and dine in the heavenly places.
Communion Meditation: Dining for Eternity
We are what we eat. If we eat well in this world, we can expect to eat well in the New Heavens and Earth. I speak, of course, of the bread and wine that our Lord gives. When we eat and drink we are practicing for how we are to eat and drink for all eternity. Our Lord gives us a Table for Kings and Queens, and He opens the doors of a feast hall where we dine and share in His peace. Let us prepare ourselves for eternity as we dine with our Lord.
Communion Meditation: The One and the Many
This Trinitarian life is given for us in many ways. The God who is Three and One gives us Bread and Wine in the midst of the congregation. The Oneness of this body is joined with the Many bodies worldwide forming the glorious body of Christ.
As we eat and drink, remember our oneness in Christ, but also remember our diversity. We are not robots made the same way with the same personalities, rather we are image-bearers, or better, worshiping humanity, made differently, but exalting as One the One who is One and Three.
Communion Meditation: The Table as Pentecostal Meal
Brothers and Sisters, This Supper is a Trinitarian event. Here at this table, the Father who is kind to His children offers us the living Bread of His Son, and He does that through the Spirit. Jesus has ascended into heaven, and is no longer with us in the flesh. But He is with us, both here at this table, and elsewhere, through the power of the Spirit, as the Lord who is Spirit.[1]The Lord’s Table is a Pentecostal meal. Even in Acts 2, we see that the disciples are breaking bread together. Food brings people together. This feast is a unifying feast. We come to eat and drink as one people united in mind and in mission. The Spirit of God says, “Come.”
[1] Leithart
Communion Meditation: The Comfort of the Ascended God/Man
There is great comfort in knowing that Jesus is and always will remain a human being. He did not throw off his humanity when he ascended into heaven. He intercedes for us at the right hand of the Father. He continues to provide for us by his spirit. He does this even as we eat and drink together. He is forever faithful to his covenant promises. He will never leave us, and part of this never-forsaking-his-own means always providing for his people through his means.
Those united to Christ are called to partake of his heavenly gifts. Come, and taste the goodness of the ascended God/man at his table.
Communion Meditation: Eat and Drink with Future Hope
Unlike those who ate and drank with no future but death, today, we eat and drink with the hope of a future life dressed in resurrection bodies. Even though should we die tomorrow, we shall live forever. We eat and drink with hope, expectation, delight, satisfaction, and fearless for Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluiah!
Communion Meditation: The Alpha and Omega of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection
Our Lord provides a future for his people. It is a future of victory and gigantic triumph. Our Lord is risen, so that He might initiate the plans of the Father to bring all things under his feet.
The Son brings glory to himself even in this simple meal. He is the alpha and omega of joy, because he endured the alpha and omega of death. And in his resurrection, we who are united to Jesus, journey with him in the alpha of his reign to the omega of his final victory over death. Thanks be to God!