This is Christ's Body, Broken for You

I walked into church on Sunday and my heart gave a small leap in my chest. On an unassuming table in the front of the room, covered with a simple white napkin, lay small cups of grape juice and pre-torn hunks of bread. My eye, well trained in Christian practices after ten years of bouncing around their circles, knew that could only mean one thing:

It was Communion Sunday.

Communion has long been my favorite sacrament in the Church. I blame at least part of this love on my upbringing; my church in Wenatchee celebrates communion weekly, so every Sunday from the time I was twelve until I left for college at eighteen, I partook in the most sacred of meals with my Family. By the time I left, I could say the words of institution backwards and forwards and sometimes, just to freak out my friends, I'd mouth along with the person leading (I never said I was a normal kid). Communion was a certainty in those years; a gift of grace I knew I would receive weekly.

The communion table at Columbia Grove.

College came, and with it came new churches and the realization that not everyone's experience of church was the same as mine. Suddenly, this practice that was the pinnacle of every Sunday service of my youth was done at infrequent intervals. Between switching churches, my retreat schedules for InterVarsity, and the occasional missed alarm clock, I never did pick up on the rhythm of communion in Bozeman. Often I would return to Wenatchee at the end of the semester and realize I hadn't received it since I left all those months ago.

But, like all too many things in my life, it wasn't until communion was absent from my life that I realized how strongly I connected to it. It wasn't until I couldn't anticipate it that I could recognize its importance, that I could truly come to the table desperate and longing and hungry.

Last Sunday, I was oh, so very hungry. The week had been hard, God had seemed distant, and I needed to experience His presence.

So much has changed in my life over the past month, but communion? The reality of God in communion never changes. No matter what Bible translation or church tradition they're said from, the words of institution ring out on Sunday mornings across the world: On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took bread, and giving thanks, He broke it, saying, "Take, and eat. This is my body, given for you." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." No matter what type of bread is on that table or what liquid may be in that cup, in a glimpse of God's majesty it becomes Jesus' body, broken, and Jesus' blood, shed. Rachel Held Evans, in her book Searching for Sunday, writes that communion is proof that "Our God is in the business of transforming ordinary things into holy things, scrapes of food into feasts and empty purification vessels into fountains of fine wine." Oh, what a beautiful image that is: That God takes our everyday and makes it extraordinary.

Communion is a physical representation of the grace that Christ gave on the cross: A piece of his suffering that I can taste, I can eat, a reminder that it is only through Christ's sacrifice that I find sustenance. As my friend Andrew Thompson put it in one of my favorite songs, "This is the bread // This is the wine // This is what love looks like."

And yet we are not called to the table simply to feast, but to remember. "This cup is the new covenant in my blood," Jesus said. "Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

On Sunday, as I sat in a folding chair and listened to a man with an Irish lilt to his voice read those oh so familiar words, I found myself awash in the memories.

Suddenly, I was twelve years old and staring at the green cups and plates on the table, confused about the practice but too scared that people would think I wasn't a Christian if I stayed seated. My first communion was one without fanfare, without acknowledgement, without any real understanding of what I was doing.

This is Christ's body, broken for you. 

I was thirteen and piled into the back of an SUV, the windows rolled down and music blasting as my four friends and I drove around the backwoods of British Columbia with our pastor, munching on Canadian chocolate and singing loudly as we tried to find a store that both wasn't closed due to the recent power outage and sold any bread other than sliced that we could use for communion.

This is Christ's blood, shed for you.

It was the next morning, and I stood by an alter that my fellow campers had built with stones and words, talking about the way God had worked over the past week. I had become a Christian the night before, and as I looked over one of the most beautiful lakes in all of creation, letting the soft bread and warm juice wash down my throat, I had no idea how my life would change.

This is Christ's body, broken for you. 

I was fourteen and was asked to help my mom serve communion. I gathered the plate and self-consciously stammered out the words, Susan, this is Christ's body, broken for you; Karl, this is Christ body, broken for you; scared that I would mess up a name or forget the phrase, not realizing that God's grace would work even when my tongue wouldn't.

This is Christ's blood, shed for you. 

I was fifteen and on staff at church. One of my student's parents was working in the nursery, and as she headed back to mind giggling and crying babies, I heard her say, "Take communion with Mackenzie this week." It was startling and humbling, the first time I really recognized both that communion should be done in community and that, even more shocking, these parents trusted me with their kids. Suddenly I wanted to do communion "right," if there even is such a thing; I wanted to revel in its importance because I desperately wanted those kids to meet Jesus, too.

This is Christ's body, broken for you.

I was sixteen and I watched as the diligent family, who cleared communion after church for weeks on end, took the remainder of the juice and poured it into the ground at the entrance of Eastmont Junior High, to bless the people who had graciously allowed us a space to gather and worship and be. I had never before realized that something so seemingly insignificant, pouring liquid on the dirt, could be so holy.

This is Christ's blood, shed for you. 

I was seventeen and I hadn't eaten breakfast. I rarely did, but between Sunday morning worship practice and two services, my stomach was grumbling as I approached the table, praying that God would fill me with a hunger for Him that was even more acute than my desperation for food.

This is Christ's body, broken for you.

I was eighteen and sat at the back table in church, alternating between shock and sobs. Troy had died the morning before, and as I wept into friend's shoulders all through communion, I had to believe that God was broken with me.

This is Christ's blood, shed for you.

It was a few weeks later, and I returned from a week at camp that left me hesitant in my faith, doubting what had once been my foundation. I received communion that Sunday, simultaneously praying that God would reconnect me to the reality of His sacrifice and questioning whether those few calories had any significance at all.

This is Christ's body, broken for you. 

It was my last Sunday before leaving for college, and I staggered up to the prayer ministers during communion, tearfully asking for courage and strength. I was worried about leaving my well loved community, forgetting that God is in constant communion with me.

This is Christ's blood, shed for you. 

It was fall of freshman year, and I handed my "communion in a cup" to the middle aged man across the aisle, trying to grasp the fact that this airplane-food juice and wafer that would most likely never spoil was just as holy as the bread I used back home.

This is Christ's body, broken for you. 

I was nineteen and in Chicago, sputtering after accidentally grabbing the real wine from the tray at the Lutheran church we were visiting, touring grad schools and daydreaming about God's future for me.

This is Christ's blood, shed for you.

I was twenty and the weight of my sin seemed to be so heavy that I could barely crawl to the table. I did not feel worthy enough to take the gift presented there, but I snatched it up greedily anyways.

This is Christ's body, broken for you.

I was twenty-one and I was gathered in a small room in Reid Hall with other college students. After navigating our way through pushed aside desks and several prayer stations, we received communion made from Premium saltine crackers and Great Value grape juice. It was strange to think that holiness could come from Wal-Mart.

This is Christ's blood, shed for you. 

It was December, mere days before my birthday and before moving halfway across the world, and I stood in a circle with twenty other people on a Saturday night as we passed the plate to one another. Tears pooled in my eyes as I watched women serve men and men serve children, people who didn't have it all together and some who only managed to appear as though they did. They looked right at the person next to them as they broke bread together, and it was communion seasoned with koinonia.

This is Christ's body, broken for you. 

I was twenty-two, and I sat in a church in Knocknacarra, Ireland, a smile plastered on to hide the fact that only the night before, I had spent over an hour crying on Skype to people back home. As the man with an Irish lilt started the words of institution, I suddenly felt more at peace than I had in a long time. I bit back more tears and I remembered.

This is Christ's body, broken for you. This is Christ's blood, shed for you. 

Communion is a reminder that God's grace is not dependent on my circumstances. No matter where I have been in my life, Christ has always met me at that table, and He always will meet me at that table. It is a meal from which I will never be turned away hungry. It always satisfies.

Communion is a reminder, as well, that I am not alone at the table. Whether it is dear friends who will cry with me or strangers whose shoulders I brush as I return to my chair, communion is a reminder that Christ's kingdom is a community and a party where we all can take a seat. We don't have to agree on everything, we don't have to pretend: We are all bonded by a need for Jesus, and there is always room at that table.

I hope that I am always hungry, and that I am hungry in a way that only Christ satisfies. I hope that communion continues to remind me, as often as you eat this bread and drink this wine, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes again. 

And that? That's a meal I'm looking forward to.