Two more days of my Lenten observance and then we have Holy Thursday and the Passover feast celebrated by Jesus as the Last Supper and the first institution of the Eucharist and the completion of Jesus’ statement in John 6:14, 53-58 “48I am the bread of life…”53bTruly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
That is one of the most important statements in the whole of the New Testament. I have done what my Lord has instructed since I was six years old. There is one other statement of Jesus that I hold almost as dear and that is what he says to those who claim to have done things in his name before he casts them out. In Matthew 7:23 Jesus says to them, “23And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” The reason I hold that so dear is that Jesus can never say that to anyone he has known, so to be known by him is the most important thing in your entire existence.
All those who have properly taken him in the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:27-29) have received him and been known by him. I tie these two statements of Jesus together to know that my Lord has known me and have eat the bread of life drunk from the cup of salvation.
I pray you too call Him Lord and eaten the bread of life and drank from the cup of salvation. If not, what are you waiting for?
