This shouldn’t happen at 68, but the fresh result of combining existing concepts still amazes me. One word from this week’s sermon and taking the Lord’s Supper combined with my mind’s semi-misuse of a word to amaze me. Here’s what happened.
Our pastor used the word “holy,” fairly briefly, that we all should be set apart for God. My mind then transposed that word “holy” into a completely different word, “whole,” which is the meaning of the word “salvation.” Soon after the message we took communion, where we consume a small piece of bread representing Jesus sacrificing his body, and a small cup of juice representing Jesus sacrificing his blood, or life. And my mind combined holy and salvation and communion.
Years back I pondered on how the elements get digested and then flow throughout our entire body. No longer is the bread bread, no long is the juice juice. They enter every cell. And I realized that communion is a marvelous metaphor for “getting saved,” or getting whole. Simply, we become a whole person as we allow Jesus to enter every dimension of every cell of every part of our lives. The physical act expresses a holy consumption with a spiritual result.
I hope that makes sense to you, and that it strikes you as hard as it did me. And, the power of a metaphor isn’t in the information it shares but in the change it evokes. So whether your church partakes weekly or monthly or quarterly, remember that it symbolizes that wholeness, or salvation, fully occurs as we open all of our lives to Jesus.
Kick Starting the Application
Before today, what did you most appreciate about communion? Has that changed a bit as you read this? How? What changes do you anticipate as you live out communion by letting Jesus into each dimension of your life? What are some areas that you’re pretty sure he’d like to touch? What keeps you from letting him?