This is my body

Tonight, I tried something strange. It was something that I had been taught not to do throughout the entirety of my evangelical upbringing. I took Jesus at his word. And doing so caused me to think about an event that has centered Christian community for 2000 years in a way that I had been carefully trained not to think about it, for fear of being Catholic. And it was profound.

I decided to take seriously the claim of Jesus, “This is my body.” This is not to say that those that think these words are purely symbolic are not taking the claim seriously. They are.

This has been a part of a journey for me. I realized about a year ago that my thinking about the Eucharist is inadequate. I realized this because this sacrament—which used to be the absolute center of Christian worship and the main reason Christians came together—had been relegated to an individualistic funeral service for God with little to no meaning.

So tonight, I tried to think about the Eucharist differently. I found my friend and pastor, Matt, and asked him to serve me communion. I did this as a picture of my need for the community of Christ to mediate his blessings to me. And when I ate the bread that had been dipped in wine (okay, it was juice), I thought of myself in receiving the actual body of Christ. I decided that, somehow, I was receiving a measure of grace through this very experience.

I am not sure how this all works. People that know me know that I am thoroughly Protestant. However, I am convinced that somehow we Protestants must find a way to talk about the Lord’s Table that does not strip its profound significance that generations of Christians have enjoyed.