Hear what the Lord God commanded: “Take a lamb for each household, and make of it a feast, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and mark your doorways with its blood, that death may pass over you when I smite the Egyptians so that Pharaoh will let you go.” And further, he decreed, “You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought you out of the land of Egypt.” And thus, the people of Israel are marked and separated from death; delivered.
Now hear what Christ commands: “Eat this bread, and drink this cup; do this in remembrance of me.”
And thus we are united, for we take Christ into us through an inexplicable mystery, made one in the church which is his body and he the head. It matters not whether there is some physical transformation, as some have held: Christ truly is present; he is manifested in these simple material things. And thus we may believe that he is made part of us, that his presence becomes part of our selves. But moreover, as we remember his death for us and for all, we testify to his saving acts. For he is the true Paschal lamb, the sacrifice and feast of our Passover; his blood is upon us, upon the doorposts and lintels of our hearts. We are separated from sin and death, that in the end they shall not claim us.
Thus we should not think of communion primarily as some sort of spiritual food, tempting though that may be. Our spiritual supply tanks are not drained as the week goes on, to be replenished of a Sunday morning. No, as we consume the bread and the wine, we make real again what is already there: our connection to the saving power of Jesus through his death and resurrection. Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, a sacrifice for the sins of the world, once for all, forever ending the curse of our fallen nature; Christ is risen, breaking the power of death; Christ will come again, as we remember through every Eucharist, coming to end this old world of sin and suffering and bring out of it the eternal life of manifest grace and glory.
And so, finally, hear what Jesus commands: “Love one another as I have loved you.” It seems a separate commandment, but it is not; it is of one substance with all that comes before. For after all, how was Jesus about to love them? “He stretched out his arms upon the cross, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.” His sacrifice is also our sacrifice: not just offerings, not just hymns of praise and worship, not just the rites he commanded us to observe. Our lives must also be of love, so that we do not need to ask, “when Lord, did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or naked?” for we will know Christ in all around us in need or trouble—but also, that all around us will know Christ through our love. And it is of course too much for us sinners: our love is halting and held back by our fallen nature. So we sin again and again; yet as we confess them, as grace pours forth in absolution, as the Spirit dwells in us, in the end it will not matter. Therefore, week by week we gather here; we hear the word of God, we proclaim our faith, we offer up our prayers, and we repeat the remembrance of Christ's death and resurrection. And we go forth in the power of the Spirit, to love and serve the Lord, by carrying his love into the world through the witness of our words and deeds, that the world may be filled with the knowledge and love of God as the water covers the sea.
