This is My Body

Offering the bread and the wine, Jesus said, “This is my body, this is my blood.” He often used metaphors, enriching the meaning of things, and deepening them. Food and drink are basics for the physical life, and here also for the spiritual life.

He called himself the Bread of Life. And we know that Scripture says life is in the blood.

He died for us, a violent, bloody death. Why it needed to be so torturous is a mystery. Did it have to be proved to all that the death was indeed final, that there was no way he could have survived it? The prophet Isaiah tells us he was marred beyond any man. No painting has truly captured it, nor ever could. Who could look at it?

And it's hard to imagine, even when we're called to remember. Then there are the details: the defection of a friend, the angry mob, the sham trial, the soldiers' insults, the near-death whipping, the crown of thorns, the heavy cross, the naked humiliation, the nails . . .

Why did the Father allow it, even forsaking him? But Jesus became sin for us, and God hates sin. God's justice vindicated; He did it for us.

And that's what He wants us to remember.

Such a simple act He asks of us, a bit of bread, a dram of wine, so easily taken, costing us nothing. Costing him everything.

Take and eat; take and drink, and let it go deep inside.