This Is My Body

(Here is another communion meditation from a few years ago. May it be a reminder of the reason we gather together each week with fellow brothers and sisters.)

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ ” (Matthew 26:26)
By now the apostles are used to Jesus saying and doing some things that seemed strange at the time. They have learned to trust him even when things don’t exactly make sense. But they must have still been dumbfounded when Jesus passes bread around the table with the explanation, “This is my body.” His natural body was present, but Jesus alludes to a different body, saying that this was now his body.
It probably didn’t make sense until Jesus used a similar meal to reveal what he was saying to his followers. It happened on the day of his resurrection. Two of Jesus’ followers are leaving Jerusalem heading toward the city of Emmaus. As they were walking, Jesus came up and walked with them as they discussed the recent events.
Apparently his body was different somehow, for they did not recognize him as he walked and talked with them, but, “when he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.”

“This is my body.”

Picture the scene in the upper room a bit differently now. Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks and breaks the bread giving it to his disciples with the instruction, “take and eat.” Then, looking around the room at each person, putting his arms around those on either side of him, he says with great pride and joy, “this is my body,” referring to the people in the room as well as the bread that was broken. That’s not the way it is recorded, but that is the reality of what was happening that night. It is the same thing he was doing on the road to Emmaus – showing his new body to those who had seen his old body. In the upper room Jesus was putting his arms around his followers, the ones who would become his body on earth after he was gone. And he was encouraging them by giving them something that they could hang on to after he had returned to the Father.
The scene continues to unfold before us today. And those words continue to be powerful words as we break the bread and eat. But it is more than bread, it is community. It is brother and sister, uniting together to become something powerful. It is member being joined to member so that we become a whole. As we gather around this table and partake of this feast, Jesus puts his arms around us, his brothers and sisters, and says to the world, “this is my body.”

And as we eat this bread, let us remember that we share this meal of the body of Christ as the body of Christ with the body of Christ.