This Sunday is Communion Sunday. On the first Sunday of each month, our congregation eats bread and drinks grape juice to symbolize Christ’s body broken for us and His blood shed for us. This represents the new covenant through Christ’s sacrifice made for us. We do this because Jesus told us to do this in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19-20).
It seems pretty straight forward. The bread represents the body, the juice represents the blood, and it all represents the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
However, long before he was crucified, Jesus told the Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have no life in us. These were his exact words in John 6:53-58:
53 “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
What exactly did Jesus mean by this? Did he mean that we had to take communion regularly in order to have life in us? Or does it go much deeper than that? Here’s what I believe Jesus meant:
“Eat my flesh” means to accept, to take in, to live on the fact that God became a man like us and dwelled among us in the flesh. In his flesh form, he overcame the flesh—something we can’t do. Our flesh is weak, has sinned, and is prone to sin again. His flesh was perfect and without sin. When we accept Jesus as God in the flesh, when we believe that Jesus is God (John 6:29), we are symbolically eating that truth—living off that truth. Living off Him. The Holy Spirit that was in Him enters into us. We eat it; we take it in.
What did Jesus mean by “drink my blood”? Remember that blood represents life. Leviticus 17:11 says that ‘the life of a creature is in its blood.” You cannot physically live without blood. Likewise, you cannot spiritually live without that blood that Christ spilled and willingly gave for you. To drink his blood means to accept, to believe, and to live off the truth that His blood was the perfect human sacrifice to cover our human sins. Again, when we drink this truth, we are taking in His Holy Spirit, which sustains us, gives us life, and gives us strength. Christ’s blood is to the soul what our blood is to our physical bodies. It gives us life.
Communion is an important sacrament. It helps us remember. However, it is believing that Jesus is the son of God (eating his flesh) and believing that his sacrifice took your place (drinking his blood) that will give you eternal life. Admit that you have sinned, ask Jesus into your heart, and then believe. So, dear brothers and sisters, eat and drink up!
Reading this has made me understand it better and everyone should read it, Thanks for posting this.
I love this. I’ve never been able to explain it completely so my kids can understand. This will help a lot!
So glad it was helpful. Blessings to you and your beautiful children.
Glad it was helpful to you. Thank you for the encouraging words. God bless you!
Brandi..Thank you for sharing this. It brings forth the importance of the sacrament. Thank you for breaking it down so we can understand the true meaning of partaking the Lords Supper.