We must never forget that this meal is a meal, designed to nourish us, and given to us for that purpose and end. The bread and the wine are given to strengthen, build up, and fortify you. This is God’s dining room in the first instance, and not a medical clinic.
But God’s food is also medicine. If we think of it as only medicine we will go far astray, and will miss the center of what is happening here, which is Table fellowship with Jesus and all His people.
At the same time, the Bible teaches that this is food that affects people differently as they come to it—and this is not true of what we might call “regular” food. Some of the Corinthians were sick and some had died because of their abuse of this meal. It is a covenant meal, and God dispenses His blessings and chastisements covenantally through it.
But we should make a further distinction. Sometimes sickness is sickness proper, and other times it is only apparent “sickness” that is the result of medicine. What happens feels like sickness, but what is actually happening is healing that feels like sickness. If you are given a purgative, what happens feels like sickness, but it can actually be helpful in healing. A regimen of chemo can feel like terrible sickness, but that is not what it actually is.
Remember that this is a place where God deals with us. If you find yourself not liking that very much, and you find yourself shrinking away from this Table, or finding excuses to avoid it, or postpone it, consider that this is what might be happening. Rationalizations usually mean that something else is going on.
If God is dealing with you, if God is seeking the surrender of something, the best thing in the world for you to do is . . . deal with it. And you can deal with it here.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.
Speaking of medicine, I’m reminded of The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton. It’s as timely now as it was then. He describes the disordered human–at every level–as being ultimately put right through God’s work. It is an interesting though at times tedious read. Worthwhile in that it reorients us to wholistic reasoning. Burton lived at a time when three models jockeyed for preeminence: the magian, the aristotelian, and the mechanistic. Of course the last one won out, but the magian and to a lesser extent the aristotelian were total and integrated in their view of nature and medicine.