1 Corinthians 11:26, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Two things to consider here. First, Jesus gave His Church the elements of bread and wine as images, symbols, signs, proxies of His Body and His Blood. The body and blood of the Lord is being represented in this meal. And secondly, as an extension of this idea, the eating of this bread and drinking of this cup are a proclamation of the Lord’s death. When the body is broken and eaten, when the cup is poured out and swallowed, the church is making a proclamation….a divine proclamation….they are proclaiming the death of their Lord.
Now…just consider how strange the imagery that our Lord has given to us really is. His death is represented not merely by a breaking and an outpouring, but by eating and drinking. He dies into us, as it were. For the death to be proclaimed, the elements cannot remain external to us, they must be taken in. We have to receive His death, to feed on His death (John 6:56), His death is the manner in which He—God—gives Himself to us as food and drink to be taken in.
How amazing that our eating, our drinking is the proclamation of His death! Why do we not have a ceremony where we make a mock sacrifice? Why is the bread not burned or the cup simply poured out as a libation? Why instead do we eat and drink? Why is our eating and drinking the picture of His death? Is it not, of course, because His death—rightly understood—is for us…..it is not a merely external reality to be considered outside of ourselves….it—He—must be taken in….we must, as John 6:35ff elaborates, we must feast on Christ, feast on the crucified Lord….His flesh given for us must be received by faith as our food, His blood poured out for us must be receive by faith as our drink….Christ dies into His Bride so that she might live…And this is what we proclaim until He—the risen one—comes again.
