Lent Meditation: Day 27 - March 16, 2026

📖 Scripture Verse

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. — 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

🕯️Meditation

The Greek word that here is translated “sharing” is koinonia.  It has a broad range of meaning: fellowship, close mutual relationship, participation, sharing in, partnership, etc.  The bread and cup we bless on Sundays is both a mark of our fellowship with one another, and our participation in the body and blood of Christ.  The Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, and The Eucharist, among others, are common ways we describe this meal we have together in remembrance of Christ until he comes again.

When we speak of being “in Christ”, and sharing in this mystical supper of body and blood:

this has a mystical dimension—we are living in the Spirit of the risen Christ as a kind of new ecology;

it also has a social dimension—we are in fellowship with one another around our common table and our symbolically shared common loaf and common cup;

it has a sacramental dimension—we participate in the life of Christ because we receive his body and blood into our spirits through taking Holy Communion (another way to translate koinonia);

it has an ecclesiological dimension (ecclesiology means “having to do with what it means to be the church”)—the church is the body of Christ, and we are members of it, just as we distribute pieces of one broken loaf of bread to each of us.

This koinonia with Christ and one another is at the center of our lives, and the holy meal we share is one of the most profound ways we can both express the communion we share with one another and deepen it.  It both reveals something that is true: we are members of the body of Christ, and creates that truth: in sharing this bread and cup, we become that which we share.

🙏 Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

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