Gracious Eating and Drinking

The Lord’s Supper is made up of participles—eating and drinking. The Lord’s Supper is not made up of material elements—bread and wine. The bread and wine are a necessary part of it, certainly, but the partaking of Christ happens in the action, motivated by evangelical faith. But the common life, the koinonia, the partaking together, occurs when we partake together.

If a minister were to walk into a deserted room, pronounce the words of institution over some bread and wine, and then walk out again, that would not be an observance of the Lord’s Supper. The bread and wine would remain bread and wine, and the minister would remain a scoundrel.

And when the people come together to eat and drink, that is better, closer, but we are not there yet. St. Paul tells us that when the Corinthians came together to eat and drink in competition, vainglory, factions, and whatnot, he says, “this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.” Before, we had bread and wine, but the people were missing. Now we have the people, but they are squabbling, and so it is not the Lord’s Supper they are partaking of—in evangelical faith.

True, they are trifling with holy things, just like the minister doing tricks in an empty room. They are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and they are incurring some covenantal chastisements of the new covenant. St. Paul said that many among the Corinthians were sick and that many had died because of this. The new covenant is not an era where God decided that it was time to allow Himself to be mocked.

We are being knit together with Christ in every faithful and gracious partaking of this Supper. This is a miracle of grace, being wrought by the Holy Spirit Himself. But He is not doing something in the bread and wine, and then putting it into you that way. He is doing something in you, and in the Church, and in the ritual of bread and wine, and He works through the participles of gracious eating and drinking.