Do This in Remembrance of Me (Christmas Communion)

On the night he shared his last meal with his disciples, Jesus broke the bread and said, “This is my body, which is for you,” and, taking up the cup, declared, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” He was telling them in advance of the very body that would soon be broken and the blood that would soon be shed.

The Jews had long believed that the blood of a lamb washed away sin, yet that blood could not make anyone clean. But he who is God shed his own blood, and so established once for all an everlasting covenant. Communion, then, is not a matter of bread becoming his body; it is a time to remember and commemorate his death, his resurrection and his return.

Christians who come to the Lord’s Table must first repent of the wickedness in their hearts and of their lack of gratitude. To take part with a heart that is not whole is, on the contrary, to sin against the body and blood of the Lord. But when they come before him in their standing as children of God, Communion becomes an occasion not of fear but of joy made twice as great.