DAILY GRACE
May 1, 2020, Friday in the Third Week of Easter
Hello Everyone! Please remember that this Sunday is a “communion Sunday.” We will be celebrating the sacrament virtually. I ask that you plan ahead for your participation in the sacrament by having bread and grape juice or wine ready. I wish you all grace and peace as we continue to weather this time of social distancing.
Pastor Dave
Scripture: John 6:52-59
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Meditation
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
In truth, we don’t understand these words of Jesus any more than did those who heard them from the lips of the Savior himself. Jesus does not offer any explanation to satisfy their curious intellects. He simply calls for their faith. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Belief is a matter of life and death, not of understanding. His flesh and blood are the medicine of immortality.
Such belief keeps us in the place of the creature, the recipient of the Creator’s love, and the follower of his plan. Why should we believe something so preposterous as these words recorded in the Gospel of John? We are perfectly free to judge from the point of view of our puny intellect that they are nonsense. We are also free to say that though we cannot understand, still we will believe, because the word of God can be trusted.
What follows upon belief? During this time of COVD-19 and social distancing we have also been following the stories of people who in their confusion and sadness were met by the risen Christ after they had laid him to rest on that first Good Friday. Surprise. Awe. Homage. Speechless wonder. Amazement. The words of Thomas, who received a personal appearance to resolve his doubt, capture the sentiments of all the first disciples in a short cry of faith, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn. 20:28).
You and I are privileged not just to see Jesus risen from the dead, but to receive him —- body, blood, and divinity. What homage should be in our hearts as we, the ones for whom Christ died, receive him in the sacrament? There are of course different interpretations of Christ’s presence here. It does not matter how it happens; it is enough to know that it happens.
Prayer
Lord, in profound reverence I thank you for this gift of yourself in the sacrament that goes by different names: Eucharist, Holy Communion, Lord’s Supper. I give thanks that when I receive you I am your whole world and you are mine. For that brief moment there is just you and I. It is the closest of meetings. It is communion. Around me are others who also are filled with your presence. Together we join the song, rejoicing that you are also for everyone who receives you.
Contemplation
I yearn for you.