I can remember that something happened even if I wasn’t there. I remember that my country was “founded” on July 4th, 1776. But that’s more of a national memory. It’s a collective remembrance. No living American was in that state house when the Declaration of Independence was signed, but every fourth of July, we remember that event by blowing things up and grilling.

As patriotic as I can make myself, lighting sparklers and covering the babies’ ears during a fireworks display doesn’t make me more of an American. It might make me thankful for my freedoms (and Independence Day should do that, at least), but on July 5th, nothing in me will have changed. My patriotism or American citizenship doesn’t draw specifically from the creation of a 248-year-old document. Americans don’t depend on that event to exist any more than a boy depends on his birth to continue to grow into a man.

This is how I grew up thinking about the Lord’s Supper. We collectively “remember” an historical event that gave birth to a new people. In turn, this recollection births thankfulness and joy, maybe sorrow for the sin that caused it, but the only nutrition the soul could leech from the oyster cracker and grape juice was some particular emotion. And while the Lord can use emotions to grow us, what happens when there is no response in us? We take communion and “nothing happens”? Did we do it wrong? Are we not remembering hard enough?

Giving advice to his goddaughter, Sarah, C.S. Lewis told her,

Don’t expect (I mean, don’t count, and don’t demand) that…when you take your first Communion, you will have all the feelings you would like to have. You may, of course: but also, you may not. But don’t worry if you don’t get them. They aren’t what matter. The things that are happening to you are quite real things whether you feel as you would wish or not, just as a meal will do a hungry person good even if he has a cold in the head which will rather spoil the taste. Our Lord will give us right feelings if He wishes – and then we must say Thank you. If He doesn’t, then we must say to ourselves (and Him) that He knows us best.

LEtters to children

An emotional reaction during communion is wonderful. I’ve been in church services (not in recent memory, thankfully) where one could tell that the one presiding of the table felt it incumbent to sort of stir the congregation into a poignant or sublime state (usually depending on the tonal center of the background music). But there is so much more to the eucharist.

If you have faith in Jesus Christ, when you take communion, something happens to you. Like standing under the shower head, we simply stand and receive what comes out of the pipes. The pipes are the means by which the water cleanses you. The food and drink are the means by which nourishment strengthens you. The bread and wine are NOT the means by which our faith in Jesus is increased. Our faith is the means by which the bread and wine become Jesus’ body and blood.

One of my favorite confessions of the Protestant Reformation is the Church of England’s Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. Article 28 puts it shortly and oh so sweetly.

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.

We feed on Christ in our hearts by faith. Jesus talks about believing in him and feeding on him in the Gospel according to St. John.

⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

John 6:53-57

We don’t take communion to demonstrate our faith. We receive it to strengthen our faith. It’s spiritual food for people who have been spiritual. It’s worth going to church for that alone (to say nothing of the other blessings of the gathered body of Christ). We (somehow) spiritually participate in his body and blood when we receive the bread and cup (1 Corinthians 10:16).

Stand under the golden conduit and receive the shower of blessing. Take, break, eat, and drink.