Throughout Lent this year we’re looking at something we do in church all the time. We’re dissecting it and looking at it from different angles to see all that God wants us to know. We’re looking at communion.
Now at face value it seems pretty simple actually. On the surface, it’s just bread and wine. The bread in many cases is dry and the wine isn’t really of the greatest quality but that’s not the point. The point of communion isn’t the pastor, the wine, the bread, whether you use a small plastic cup or a large gold-plated one. It’s not about red vs. white wine. It’s not about whether you stand or kneel. It’s about something happening that you can’t even really see. It’s about the word, the promise that’s connected to the bread and wine.
This week we look at communion through an old testament story known where Israel was complaining about being hungry so God fed them with bread from heaven. Each day they received just enough for that day. They couldn’t vacuum seal it or put it in a storage bag. Only take today what you can eat today.
Now look at communion for a minute. We don’t come up here hungry for food. And if you do, you’re likely going to leave still hungry! There’s not enough bread there to fill even the smallest of bellies. You don’t come to get your thirst quenched because that tiny sip of wine really isn’t going to do a whole lot for a parched tongue. No we come because we have a different hunger that needs fed. We have a different thirst that needs quenched. Like the Israelites, we can’t take extra for tomorrow. We can’t pack some in a baggie or freeze it for tomorrow. Just take what you need for today.
In the New Testament, Jesus tells us he’s the bread of life. He’s the bread of life that we receive when we eat this bread and drink this cup remembering what it means. It’s a celebration. It’s a memorial of what Jesus did on the cross. Communion is about Jesus’ work done for you and me. Jesus as bread of life is a reminder that even our daily needs are taken care of by the God who sent his son to die for you.
Each Wednesday through Lent, the goal is to write a little poem that brings the promise of God with the reality that this promise was fulfilled in Jesus. Here’s the poem for this week.
We gather here this Lenten eve, our souls some truth to find
Onto the cross we all must cleave, with faith some say is blind.
We see tonight God’s people old, they whine for drink and food.
God will provide is what they’re told, but will it taste so good?
They grumble that they should have died, with in their place of woe.
They think their fearless leader lied, they should have told him NO!
But God was faithful to them still, They would not starve and die
For each new day it was his will, to give them food. But why?
Each morning when they did awake, upon the ground they’d see
Some bread that fell they need not bake, and take just what’s for thee.
This bread they found would point us to, our savior’s pain and strife.
His body broken all for you, is called the bread of life.
Now at the altar when we stand, and take this bread and wine
It is his body in our hand, upon which we now dine.
All this he did to give us hope, our sins he did forgive
And snatch us from the downward slope, eternal life to give.
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