A Twilight Musing

In breaking bread at the Lord’s Table we usually think first of His physical body, particularly as that body endured the pain of the cross. Such literal remembrance is appropriate, but there are widening circles of meaning radiating from that point that should not get lost in graphic reminders of His physical suffering.

The fact that He assumed fleshly form at all is as striking as the fact that He died while clothed in it, for only a perfect life could have served God’s purposes for the perfect sacrificial death. The glorified body which proved His victory over death is our assurance that death will not reign over our mortal bodies.

An even broader meaning, however, which is not often enough thought of in connection with the bread of the Lord’s Supper, is the designation of the church as the “Body of Christ.” In I Cor. 12 and Eph. 4, Paul emphasizes the major implication of this metaphor: all the members are joined together for the mutual good of the Body, and guidance and purpose are given to the whole organism by the head, Christ. We thus may see the eating of the bread as our acknowledgment that Jesus’ life and death and resurrection have made it possible for us to be so intimately related to Him that we may be spoken of as one Body, sustained by one divine life.

As Paul pointed out, this relationship denotes something vital about our interaction with one another in the Body. The dwelling of the divine life within us as individuals is possible only if we all partake of it together, in harmony. To fail to do so is to dishonor and mar our memory of His body.

Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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