Take, eat
The bread and the cup
It is the last night, and everything is coming apart. Within hours one friend will betray Him, another will deny Him, the rest will scatter into the dark, and He knows it as He sits down with them. And what He does, on that night of all nights, is take bread. He gives thanks, breaks it, and puts it into their hands with words they will repeat for two thousand years. Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me. Then the cup, passed hand to hand around a table about to be emptied by the cross. There is something deliberate in this, that He hands His friends not a doctrine to defend but a meal to eat, something for the hands and the mouth and not only the mind. And Paul, writing later to a divided church, sees a second thing in the broken loaf. Because there is one loaf, he says, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. One bread, torn and shared, and the many who eat it become, in the eating, one. The table given out on the night it all fell apart turns out to re-root those who come to it twice over, to Christ broken for them, and to one another.
“Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me.”
— Jesus, at the table — 1 Corinthians 11:24 (WEB)
“Because there is one loaf of bread, we, who are many, are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf of bread.”
Reconnect comes down to a table. The Lord hands His friends, on the night it all fell apart, not a doctrine but a meal, telling them to keep doing it until He comes. Take, eat. Re-rooting becomes tangible here, in bread and cup, in the hands and the mouth and not only the mind. And the one loaf does more: the many who share it are made one body. The table re-roots us at once to Christ given for us and to each other.
You may believe reconnection has to wait until your thinking is fixed, your doubts resolved, your worthiness somehow restored. The table says otherwise. Reconnection here is not something you think your way into; it is something you taste. You do not have to feel worthy or have every belief back in order. You come, you take, you eat the bread broken for you, and the doing of it re-roots what the mind could never reason its way back to. Faith here is not first an argument won but a meal received with empty hands. And you are never re-rooted to Christ alone at this table, for the one loaf makes the many one body.
The same bread that joins you to the Lord given for you joins you, in the eating, to the others reaching for the same loaf. So come, even unsettled, even unsure. The bread was broken for you before you sorted anything out, and the cup was poured before you felt ready. Take and eat, and let your soul be re-rooted in something it can finally hold. Take and eat, with all the others being made one with you. At this table reconnection becomes something you can hold, and the soul and the body are reconnected at once.
The Church can intellectualize faith until reconnection seems to demand getting all the thinking sorted first, and it can let the table that once united it become the very place it splinters, fenced and fought over across traditions. The Lord meant otherwise. Take, eat. He gave His whole Church not a doctrine to defend but a meal to share, and Paul saw the deeper miracle: because there is one loaf, the many who eat it are made one body. As the recurring upheaval shakes the Body, the restored table draws scattered and divided Christians back toward Christ and toward one another. Before a watching world, communion is the sign that the one Church, broken into so many pieces, is still being made one in the bread it shares.
Your feelings of worthiness will rise and fall, and your doubts may never fully resolve. What holds is the body given for you and the cup poured out, a gift you receive with empty hands and not a prize you earn with settled beliefs. The bread was broken for you before you sorted anything out, and the one loaf still makes the many one.
- Am I waiting to feel worthy or to settle every doubt before I will come to the table?
- Where have I tried to reason my way back to God when I was invited simply to come and eat?
- How does sharing the one loaf bind me to the others who eat it, and am I living as though it does?
Lord, I keep thinking I must get my believing sorted and my worthiness proven before I can come. But You said only take, eat. So I come with empty hands to the bread broken for me, and I receive what my mind could not reason its way back to. Re-root me here, to You given for me, and to all the others who share the one loaf. Make us one. Amen.