There is Resurrection in the Bread

Pentecost is the catalyst for charismatic expression within all forms of the church.  It stands as the paramount example of how the Spirit of Christ is at work in the world today.  Through prophecy, preaching, baptism, and spiritual gifts, the Spirit remains our source of comfort and Christ’s continuing presence in our lives.

But what does this have to do with the communion?  Communion is a remembrance of Christ’s death, right? Well, yes and no.  What I have been interested in, and what I think is so important to our understanding of communion in a post-Pentecost world, is the tension of death and resurrection in the Lord’s Supper.

When Christ institutes communion he instructs us all to do this in remembrance of him until he comes again.  His second coming is the culmination of his resurrection, and a rightful declaration of the power he received at his resurrection and ascension when he conquered sin and death.  Clearly, we must remember more than death.

So then what is in the bread and cup that we remember?  It is done in remembrance of Christ, so then who is Christ?  He is the resurrected one, the ascended one, the one who is now present through his Spirit.  It follows then that Christ’s presence in communion, evidence more so in his presence in our daily lives, is the presence of not a dead but a resurrected Lord.  It is in the bread, in Christ’s body, that we find a symbol of the power of resurrection and the conquering of sin and death.

This leads us to healing.  If death has been conquered, has not illness, disease, and decay?  Has not Christ conquered all?  Yes indeed!   Christ’s body conquered death.  Furthermore, in Christ’s body, his spiritual body and his body at communion, we are invited into the conquering of death.  In other words, there is resurrection in the bread.  It is broken for us, but it makes us whole.  As Christ gives us living water he promises us living bodies: whole bodies, bodies without illness, disease, or decay.