Life-Giving Food
“While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’”
Matthew 26:26-28
Humanity’s complicated relationship with food began almost from the beginning … the third chapter of Genesis to be exact. Until then, humans had been given freedom and responsibility by God for the care of all of creation. But in Genesis 3, the first humans chose instead the one thing — the enticing forbidden fruit — they had been told they should not eat.
This has long been referred to as “The Fall” … fall from grace, fall from relationship, fall from the security of having enough and leading to be forced to toil “the cursed ground” full of “thorns and thistles” (Genesis 3:17-18) to scrape up just enough to eat and feed our families. The very next generation, brothers Cain and Abel, competed and fought and eventually resorted to fratricide over … what? Who had the best food to give to God!
And so, it has gone ever since, driven by the daily struggle to survive. Across millennia, battles and wars have been fought for better-producing land or riches so that we would not be burdened by that daily fear of finding food for our families.
That is until Jesus gave us a path to a different way of existence. During His ministry in Palestine, Jesus healed and fed thousands of people. He spoke of the “Kingdom of Heaven,” leading some to wrongly believe that by Heaven coming down to Earth, the friends of Jesus would finally not have to worry about where the next meal would come from or which regional superpower would invade and conquer them next.
But that was not quite what Jesus meant when He spoke about the Kingdom and when He gave us the meal quoted above. Jesus’ meal was less about satiating our physical hunger and more about filling our spiritual hunger. This meal of bread and wine represents an act of self-giving, a final offering of Jesus’ very life. His life, up to this point — His birth, His life, His relationships, His ministry — had been Jesus’ daily choice to live a human life and all that it entailed. And now His suffering and death will be the ultimate choice of love for us and for the Father, made by Jesus.
Jesus gave us this meal in His penultimate self-giving gift to all. And in so giving, this meal was meant to be the basis of a new community, a community of the Kingdom of Heaven joined to one another in and through union with Christ Jesus. Through this meal, we recognize not just our need for God but of our need for one another as well, despite our differences or divisions.
