Given for you...

The words are not unfamiliar...nor is the setting. I say them more than 5000 times every year in the context of public worship. So I am not exactly sure why this past Sunday, in the midst of our sharing of Holy Communion, I could barely speak the words:

"The Body of Christ, given for you."

Perhaps it had to do with just having read the passion account from Mark's Gospel. Or perhaps I was more keenly aware than usual of my own sin and my own need before God. All I know is that the line of folks coming forward to the feast seemed to go on and on. And as I pressed the bread into each hand and looked into each person's face, I felt the tears gradually welling up in my eyes and a choking sensation in my throat...until I was finally unable to speak:

"The Body of Christ, given for you."

Please understand. The wet eyes were not for sadness. And the broken voice not simply a crumb caught in my throat. They were, instead, the deep expression of awe at a gift so magnanimous and so undeserved. We take into our hands, into our mouths, into our very bodies the life-giving presence of the Redeemer. We feast on the love of the One whom we routinely disparage, trivialize and abandon. And still He keeps coming back...anxious to transform us into his own likeness that we might bear that redeeming love to all the world.

"The Body of Christ, given for you."

Brothers and sisters, this is no mere ritual. It is divine sustenance...the only food which can make us truly alive in this world and for the world to come. We eat...seldom aware how deep our need for this banquet. But God knows. And so in grace, He continues to make Himself present among us.

"The Body of Christ, given for you."

Amen, we say. Truly it is so.