with Dr. Joseph Tkach
Grace Communion International

Called Together

On the night before he was betrayed and arrested, Jesus met with his disciples for a final meal. It was not just any meal; it was the ritual Passover meal, observed once a year in accordance with the Law of Moses,

Applying the symbols of the Passover to himself, Jesus broke the ritual bread and told his disciples,

"This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19).

Then he lifted and blessed the cup of ritual wine, and told them:

"Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:27-28).

For Christians, this special meal becomes the Lord’s Supper, or Communion. When we eat and drink the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, something wonderful, yet incomprehensible, is going on: We are being brought in a special way into communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – as well as with all believers.

Through this command of Jesus to eat his flesh and drink his blood, we are not only kept in memory of what God has done for us, we are also brought together in Jesus Christ, united by faith, into intimate fellowship with God.

In Romans 12:5, Paul wrote, "In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."

All Christians are called into the one "body of Christ," and therefore we all have fellowship with one another because we are all in union with Christ.

Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:16: "From him [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

Jesus expects each of us to do our part to build up his body in love. It is meaningless to say that Jesus is our friend, or that we love him, if we refuse to have anything to do with the others he calls his friends. The body of Christ, the church, is far bigger than any one of us or any church denomination. To be part of Christ’s body is to belong to the fellowship of the saints, the fellowship we all share with Jesus Christ, the beloved of the Father.

That means we are never alone. Jesus is always with us, and he has called us to always be with one another. He tells us in John 13:35, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, so we are called to love one another and care for one another.

In the communion service, we take part in the unity of the household of faith, the unity we have with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 12:22-24 says, "You have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."

The church is a group of redeemed sinners, made new in the death and resurrection of the Son of God, and the whole creation resounds in joyful celebration of God’s redeeming power and grace toward us.

This Easter, as we celebrate communion together, may we remember who we are in Jesus Christ, and praise our Lord who has made us one in himself.

I’m Joseph Tkach, speaking of LIFE.

Copyright 2009 Grace Communion International