Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“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.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, August 24, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
We hear these words or some variation of them all the time. They are so much a part of my regular worship life I almost don’t register them anymore. But imagine what it must have been like to be one of Jesus’ followers in that room. The Passover feast would have been second nature to them. But this new thing? Jesus was always doing a new thing. What was he saying now? The bread was his body? The wine was his blood? Blood of a new covenant? Maybe they were so used to him changing the script that they just went with it, fully trusting that this was God’s truth even if they didn’t understand it. Would I have been so accepting? Would you?
Even now people argue about what, exactly, Jesus meant by these words about his body and blood. Yet as so many of us experience, when we do this in remembrance of him, we are connected to him in real and powerful ways. I don’t think we need to understand it. It is a gift and a promise, freely given.
When I stop to think about these words of institution, what do they mean to me?
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