Substantiation (or I Get Nervous During the Lord's Supper)

Last week I took communion at church.

I always get nervous when the dish with the little cups of grape juice comes by (Baptist church). When I was little I spilled the tray after having insisted that I was old enough to be able to handle it. It bothered me a lot, not only because of my dad’s disappointed expression and my mom’s embarrassed apologizing to the deacon, but also because I knew that the little cups of juice had something to do with the blood of Jesus.

And I sure didn’t want to spill that.

I always get nervous over the dish with the juice, but not really the plate with the crackers.

Well, this past week I picked up my tiny cracker representing the body of Christ and held it between my index finger and my thumb. I started to think through my usual communion thoughts… Lord, thank you for your sacrifice… Thank you for the death that atoned for me… I thank you that I have new life in Christ and will one day enjoy the feast that this foreshadows with Him in the new created order…

Then something unexpected happened.

The cracker broke.

Some pieces fell to the ground. I immediately looked around to see if anyone had noticed what I had done.

What to do next? Pick up the pieces? There is always something holy and mysterious about the Lord’s Supper and there were pieces lying on the floor. If I left them others might step on them unknowingly. Trampled underfoot like it was nothing. What if they were later vacuumed up? Treated as mere crumbs when they were the very symbol of Christ’s body broken for His bride. I could hardly stand the thought! I felt very ashamed.

Then something unexpected happened.

I saw that I had broken the body of Christ.

That cracker was broken on account of me. Christ was broken on account of me.

I realized that I had come to think very little of my sin. So much so that I was more ashamed at breaking a cracker than I have been by the acts of rebellion that have persisted in my life. I was more concerned about that cracker being trampled underfoot than I was about the way my actions have trampled the one I call Lord.

It was a powerful reminder to me. I have spilled the blood of Christ and I have broken the body of Christ.

Here’s an uncomfortable verse:

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. – Hebrews 10:26-31