The Body & Blood of Christ


In 157 CE a Christian leader named Justin wrote that “taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, … is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” Justin was communicating that while Christians at the time were saying that they were eating the body and blood of Christ during their religious rites, they were actually eating bread and wine and not participating in cannibalistic sacrifice. 

Early on, there were many misconceptions about what Christians did and didn’t do and Communion is one that not only was a source of contention with outsiders, but remained a place of disagreement between Christian and Christian. As we prepare for the coming of World Communion Sunday, the Sunday we highlight the world wide community of that feast, I want to talk a little about what communion has meant over the generations and how we still have differing understandings of what this sacrament is. 

Matthew, Mark and Luke all contain a narrative of  when Jesus broke bread and shared a cup of wine with his disciples asking them to remember him when doing so in the future. 1 Corinthians contains the language that we say over the table when we share communion. It is understood that the ritual of Communion was practiced long before any Gospel was written, being very likely one of the first sacraments in the institution. A sacrament is defined in Christianity as a physical embodiment of Grace, and while in other denominations, there are a number of sacraments that include death rites and marriage, in Presbyterianism, we only endorse two sacraments: Baptism and Communion - sacraments instituted by Christ himself in the Gospels. 

At the table, we are gathered, we are given sustenance and we proclaim God’s Grace in its many forms. The ritual itself is remembering Christ's compassion in life and his promise in death, but it also is a time in which we are re-membered, made members again of this body we call the church. Reminded of our membership, first and foremost as part of God’s family, through Christ, we are then opened again to hearing God’s call upon our lives, seeking to live out this Divine love in and through our relationships with one another. World Communion Sunday is an opportunity to be reminded of just how large this family is and how many boundaries it crosses. 

Next week we’ll talk about if the bread turns into flesh and if the wine/juice turns to blood and why it has been so important that we have called one another heretics when we disagree with one another. 

This is a part one of a series. Click here to read part 2.

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