We gather together here at the Table of the Lord in order that He might feed us. We do not gather here on the assumption that the bread and wine constitute some kind of theological puzzle, the meaning of which we must figure out before we are qualified to take it. This is a meal—nourishment.
But this is not said so that we come to the meal ignorantly—meals have meaning also. But the meaning of a meal and the meaning of a theological puzzle are quite different.
Because this is a covenant meal, we have to recognize that the meaning is in the eating and in the drinking—not in the bread and wine as they sit here on the Table in their own right. The communion is in the communing, in the taking, in the chewing, in the drinking, and, here it is, in the loving.
Our lives are always part of the picture. Just as we ought not to ask if this part of Scripture is law or gospel, printed on the page, but rather to see that the response of love sees everything as gospel, and the response of hate sees everything as law, so it is with this meal.
In the giving of His Word, in the administration of His sacraments, God never simply “puts on a show.” We are never spectators; we are always participants. As participants, we are either faithful or unfaithful participants. If faithful, we experience the meal one way. If unfaithful, we experience the meal another. But we may never ask what the essence of the meal is without the participants. The meal is nothing without the participants.
There is no communion without communicants. And as soon as you have communicants, you have sin that will repent, sin that won’t repent, faith that will persevere, faith that staggers and will be strengthened. What is this meal? You are this meal.
That is why the apostle insists that you look around, and see Christ in the bread—for you are the bread.