God delights to feed His people. In Psalm 104:15, we learn that wine has been given to make glad the heart of man. We learn in the same verse that bread was given to strengthen the heart of man.
Strength and gladness are therefore here on this Table before us. God has given us the wine of the new covenant, the covenant through which all our sins are washed away, and our response is therefore one of joyful thanksgiving and gladness. This is a Eucharistic Table, a Table of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for what? You sins are forgiven. Your guilt is washed away. God has taken away your heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh, on which His perfect law is inscribed. We are glad because we have been justified in Christ, and we therefore have peace with God.
But we also have bread here, and bread was given to strengthen the heart of man. This is a sign of God’s work in our midst to sanctify us. He does not just forgive us, and then leave us filthy. He forgives us, and He blesses us, and He washes us, and He equips us. This equipping can be seen in the bread—substantive strength for the way. You will all leave here this morning, and you will face various challenges and temptations. You need strength for the way. Remember also that the bread is the one loaf of the body of Christ, and this means that your strength is not to be thought of as individual strength. As you grow stronger, you are doing so as a member of the others here.
Wine and bread. Gladness and strength. Justification and sanctification. Forgiveness and holiness. All given to us as a flat out gift, none of it learned. This is the hardest thing for us to grasp. How can gladness come from another? How can strength come from outside? We are troubled by these things because we are still in the grip of radical Enlightenment individualism. We think it all must arise from within. But we are not individuals; we are interdividuals. So take and eat, take and drink.