Communion and the Lord's Supper
Communion is familiar to many Christians. For some, it brings to mind bread, a cup and a moment set aside during a church service. But familiarity can sometimes cause an important question to go unasked: What was Jesus actually teaching His disciples to remember?
That question begins in John 6, where Jesus described Himself as “the bread of life.”
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.”
He went on to say that unless someone ate His flesh and drank His blood, there was no life in them. To those hearing Him naturally, those words were difficult. Even some of His disciples called it “an hard saying.”
But Jesus soon explained that He was speaking about something deeper than physical food.
“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
Scripture gives other examples of this kind of language. Ezekiel was told to eat the scroll God gave him and then speak those words to Israel. Jeremiah wrote, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them.” Neither was being instructed to physically consume parchment or words. The picture was one of receiving the Word, digesting it, allowing it to become part of them and then living from what they had received.
That helps illuminate what Jesus meant when He spoke of eating His flesh.
His life was the example.
The way He lived in the body, submitted to His Father, resisted sin, endured suffering, showed mercy, loved others and remained obedient was something His disciples were meant to take into themselves.
Paul later wrote of “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”
The goal was not simply to remember facts about Jesus.
His life was meant to become visible in theirs.
The same idea helps explain communion.
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul wrote of “the communion of the blood of Christ” and “the communion of the body of Christ.” Communion speaks of fellowship, participation and sharing. Paul’s concern was that believers understood what they were joining themselves to.
They could not fellowship with Christ while also fellowshipping with things that were contrary to Him.
The question was not merely what someone ate or drank. It was what that person was participating in, identifying with and allowing to become part of his or her life.
That becomes even clearer in 1 Corinthians 11.
The believers in Corinth were gathering for what they called the Lord’s Supper, but Paul rebuked how they were treating it. There were divisions among them. Some were eating before others. Some were going hungry while others had more than enough. Some were even becoming drunk.
They were participating in the outward gathering while losing sight of what the gathering was supposed to represent.
Paul reminded them of what he had received concerning Jesus:
“The Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.”
Those words are the heart of the matter.
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
Jesus knew how quickly people forget.
A prayer is answered, and months later another difficulty can make it seem as though God has never answered before. A door opens, a burden is lifted or help comes at just the right time, yet eventually yesterday’s miracle can become today’s normal.
Jesus did not want His disciples to forget Him.
He wanted them to remember the things He had taught them. Remember the mercy He had shown. Remember the miracles they had witnessed. Remember the corrections He had given them. Remember the cross. Remember the empty grave. Remember the life He had lived before them.
The bread and the cup pointed them back to that remembrance.
Paul continued:
“This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.”
There was meant to be reverence in that remembrance. The One who had come from the Father had taken upon Himself the same human condition His followers experienced, lived faithfully before God and willingly gave His life.
That was not something to remember casually.
But neither was remembrance meant to end with a ceremony.
Remembering Christ should produce something within the believer.
If His life is remembered, His example should increasingly be followed.
If His death is remembered, there should also be a willingness to die to anger, envy, malice, pride, strife and anything else that keeps the life of Christ from being made visible.
The remembrance becomes a way of life.
That is why the deeper question is not simply whether someone participates in a particular custom.
The deeper question is whether the heart behind it is present.
Scripture allows room for believers to hold certain customs differently. Romans 14 describes one person esteeming one day above another while another esteems every day alike. Paul’s instruction was not for them to condemn one another, but for each to be fully persuaded before the Lord and to act with a heart directed toward Him.
The outward form may differ.
The heart still belongs to God.
Jesus Himself warned about the danger of outward religion without inward transformation.
He rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for cleansing “the outside of the cup and of the platter” while neglecting what was within. Their concern with outward observance had not produced the inward righteousness God desired.
“Cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”
That principle reaches far beyond communion.
A ritual can look beautiful.
A custom can be meaningful.
A tradition can even help someone pause and remember Christ.
But none of those things can substitute for the work God desires to accomplish in the heart.
The greater aim is to carry the remembrance of Jesus beyond a particular moment.
To remember Him when anger rises.
To remember Him when pride wants the last word.
To remember Him when forgiveness is difficult.
To remember Him when obedience requires sacrifice.
To remember how He lived, how He loved, how He suffered and how He submitted to the will of His Father.
That is communion in its deepest sense: fellowship with Christ that becomes part of the life.
Because the most important remembrance of Jesus is not simply what happens at a table.
It is what happens afterward.
When His life is remembered deeply enough that His life begins to be seen in ours.
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