This is the Gospel of John’s take
on what Jesus meant the meal to be. More than a ritualized remembrance the living
bread from heaven is the life of God in bread baked and grape fermented that at
the same time is the real flesh and blood of Jesus. When she was young and her brother younger
still Michaelann Berry told Austin, “I know it tastes like bread but it’s
really Jesus’ body” to which he replied, “Ewwwww.” (and rightly so) That’s the
trouble with texts that want to be taken literally and figuratively at the same
time. It is bread but it is really Jesus body. It is wine but it is really
Jesus’ blood. Or we might just as easily say it is Jesus’ body but it is really
bread. Or it is Jesus’ blood but it is really wine. The Lutheran take on what
Jesus meant the meal to be proclaims the paradox and accepts both statements to
true at the very same time. In the same way the simple meal of bread and body,
wine and blood, transcends time and space so that joined with Christ we are
united with those who are and those who were and those who will be. That is how
the future forever feast is fully found in our present even as we remember the
past event, “in the night in which he was betrayed Jesus took bread…” It tastes familiar, like the things of the earth we eat at home
but as the bread we will eat in heaven it declares what no eye has seen, no ear
heard, no mind conceived…. (1 Corinthians 2:9)
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