Exact Image
Oringinally scheduled to be delivered February 7
On any number of occasions, for all kinds of
reasons – or no reason at all – you may be asked to produce some
form of identification. The usually preferred form is a driver’s
license, but almost always the request will be for a photo ID. You
understand why. If you want to identify someone, you usually do it
by looking at their face. Sometimes the photo is blurred – and as
far as you know that could be any combination of chemicals on paper.
Other times the photo is sufficient for you to say, “That’s Joe.” If
the photo is evocative enough, however, you might say, “Now
that’s Joe.” It’s not just the likeness of looks, but
the likeness of action that you look for.
Communion is just such an image of Jesus. We
don’t have any portrait dating to his lifetime, but we have an
image. It is an image of his humanity:
Communion is
served in physical, material elements – which reminds us
that He has a body just like ours.
It also reminds
us that He is well acquainted with the sorrows of life –
especially the betrayal by a friend.
Pain, too, is
shown in this. When you get up in the morning with arthritis
in every joint, remember that He went through horrible pain
– uncomplaining.
Communion is also a picture of Christ’s
sacrifice. He went willingly to the Cross for our sins. Communion
paints us a picture of that:
As any parent
knows, the word “sacrifice” often enough means pain and
tears. Pain is the present tense of the verb, “to
sacrifice.”
There is a future
tense as well – it is the anticipation of death. We are
reminded that his death was not a swift one, but one which
gave room for the agony of coming death.
Most of all, it
is a sacrifice of love – and God is love.
Communion is not a photograph of Christ. It’s a much better
picture than that.
