Communion Thoughts-Light

Some of you have had to drink the die that can be x-rayed. You drank it and it traveled through your body and when it was x-rayed, it glowed. The light of this substance is visible to the x-ray machine, even if you cannot see it.

When we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we drink light. It is as if the light of this meal travels into us, enters our blood and makes its way through our entire body, bringing light to all the dark places. I should make some qualification here. I do not believe that the bread and wine are literally the body and blood of Jesus. They are still bread and wine. But as we eat and drink in faith, we are being assimilated into the life of Christ. We really are being transformed into Christlikeness. This really is happening.

Here on earth, we are fully saved but we are not yet fully sanctified. This is a process that takes a lifetime and perhaps much more. How could our sanctification take more than a lifetime? Do not get me wrong here either. I am not proclaiming the need for Purgatory. Curse that vile doctrine. When we die, sin will be banished from having any influence on us. And when we are resurrected, our bodies will be fully incapable of sinning. So, in the sense of not being able to sin, our sanctification is on layaway at death and completed at the resurrection.

But will we not always be learning Christ? Is not His realm, and work and person far beyond all ability for finitude to grasp? And we will always be finite. We will never be God. Then, we will continue to be assimilated into the life of Christ, seeing, hearing and experiencing new wonders in Him for all time and for all eternity. This is one way in which our sanctification, or growth in grace, will never be complete, and to God be the glory.

But here, as we eat and drink, we eat and drink promise. Those who eat and drink, believing simply, have the light of this promise spread throughout their body, soul and spirit. They are washed in the blood, nourished in the body, made strong in Jesus, kept until the last day, made fit for the resurrection, preserved for the life of Jesus. So, eat this way. Drink this way. In hope, in faith, in love, in Christ.