And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." – Luke 22:19

Today's Scripture Reading (February 10, 2024): Luke 22

I am a Baptist. All that probably means is that I belong to one of the most rebellious Christian denominations ever invented by Followers of Christ. To be brutally honest, we will not let anyone tell us what to do, even other Baptists (unless it has something to do with what we do in the bedroom when we are not sleeping, then we have forced many opinions on each other regarding what we believe; ah, but that is a story for another time.) What amazes me sometimes is that there are so many different flavors of Baptists. This rebellious group of Christians who will allow no one to tell them what to do also seem to be continually dividing over the question of what others are doing, and I admit that I haven't quite gotten that part of being a Baptist figured out yet.

I am a Baptist. My particular flavor of Baptist belief has separated from other Baptists over the role of women in the church (there are probably other reasons, but this is the one that seems to stand out the most.) Unlike some of our closest Baptist relatives, we are egalitarian, which simply means that we believe that anything a man can do, a woman can do (and all my female readers are welcome to add the word "better" to the end of that statement.) It is a big part of our identity, but that doesn't mean that we don't still argue about it.

But another part of our identity is a specific rebellion against the Roman Catholic Church. When we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we stress that the bread symbolizes Christ's body and that the wine (or, in our case, the grape juice) symbolizes Christ's blood. It is a rebellion against the view of the Catholic Church called transubstantiation. Transubstantiation states that the bread and the wine used in the Lord's Supper actually change and become Christ's body and blood during the celebration, even though, according to our senses, the bread and the wine appear to remain unchanged. For the Baptist, this does not happen. The bread and the wine symbolize Christ's body and blood. And sometimes, in celebrating the ritual, we will downgrade this further by stressing that the bread and the wine are "merely" a symbol. We don't want anyone to get any ideas about what is happening as we celebrate around the table.

However, I was reminded recently that that was not what the Bible says. The words of Jesus recorded by his disciples say absolutely nothing about the bread and the wine being "merely a symbol" of Christ's body and blood; they record that, according to Jesus, he said, "this is my body" and "this is my blood." This is a significant oversight for a religious group that has many within its fold that hold to a literal understanding of the Bible. The literal interpretation would seem to support transubstantiation. This leads me to another conclusion: I am a Baptist, which also means that sometimes I am wrong.

The Roman Catholics and the Baptists are probably both wrong when we come to what Jesus meant when he described the bread at the Last Supper as his body. Jesus was perhaps looking back to something he had said much earlier in his ministry; "⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink" (John 6:54-55). His meaning was never intended to be literal (transubstantiation), nor was it meant to be "merely a symbol." The purpose of Jesus's words was that those who would partake in the ritual of the Lord's Supper must be willing to be fully committed to him (the political meaning of "eat my flesh and drink my blood" in Jesus's day) and that these fully committed followers would be raised up.

Every time we share in the Lord's Supper ritual, we are not doing "merely" anything. We are committing ourselves anew to the person of Jesus Christ. We are indicating that we are fully committed to the cause and person of Jesus. We affirm that nothing will stop us from doing his will here on earth. And that purpose does not change depending on whether we call ourselves Catholics, Baptists, or any other flavor of

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: John 13

See Also Matthew 26:22