The Body and The Blood

“His body, the bread/ His blood, the wine/ Broken and poured out all for love.”

Well Church:

Good Monday.

This week I was asked to write about what the cross means to me. I think it is an opportunity to take the nature of the crucifixion literally. I’m going to tell you something that might change how you view communion, forever. Though the depiction is grotesque and stomach churning, the implication and tangibility might help us cross over from the symbolic/theoretical realm we are accustomed to dealing with the crucifixion within, into a more literal depiction.

A long while ago, I was leading a Bible Study with a buddy of mine Gary Watkins. In a conversation in which we were discussing ways to make communion more real and practical he shared that he actually thinks of the personage of Jesus being consumed when he takes the bread and wine. Now, we know the bread and the wine are a symbolic objectifications of the flesh and blood of Jesus; used in order to provide illustration and symbolic representation of the very physical act that was done on mankind’s behalf on the cross. We cerebrally can process this idea. What Gary was illustrating though was revolutionary. He was saying (paraphrase), “I think of the bread as Jesus’ flesh that I am literally chewing  and I think of the grape juice as Jesus’ blood that I am actually swallowing. 

This might be too much for your Monday. But if the reaction you are having is guttural and physiological and  if you are taken aback, or maybe feel like there is a level of inappropriateness in the notion of literally approaching communion this way, that is probably a good thing.

Why? Well, the cross was inappropriate. It was a well thought out instrument of torture and death. It was base and guttural, often the men were naked and exposed for their family to see, nailed like signage to a wood post. It was physiological, meaning that it actually happened to a man's flesh and had ramifications to the processes that kept him alive. The crucifixion is a true, blood soaked, love story, not a necklace, or arabesque painting in some Italian museum of a doe like, porcelain Christ, with arms open. We get lost in the folklore, and the iconography of Christ and miss the tangibility of the events actuality. Taken deeper, in that false ideology we lose understanding of our salvation, can mis access the transformative power of the event and ultimately make it hard to draw parallel or significant connection to the Resurrection. We can’t overlook the cross’s gruesome and still lavish in the magnificence of the Resurrection. No, on the contrary, we accurately attribute The Resurrection as elevated because of the lowly nature of The Cross. 

As we move into the book of Hebrews next  and focus more on the deity and actuality of Jesus Christ, remember each time His body is spoke of that it was actually beaten, bruised, mangled and destroyed. Remember, that His blood was poured out in literal fluid ounces for you and I. When we take communion, remember that the moist bread is a close representation of the flesh of God that was compromised on our behalf; as the warm juice rolls down your throat, remember that it is an accurate representation of what the real man Jesus’ actual blood would have felt like in your mouth. 

At the time, I resented Gary for marring me with his base image and stylistic choice towards communion, but now, eight years later I am indebted for the perspective that I have each time I place bread and wine to my lips. I pray that this reality and connection will not just be reserved for communion time, but everytime I hear Jesus Christ’s name. 

- Antonio Cortez Appling