the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him. He hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:54-56.
According to this the Lord’s Supper is a real participation in and a true reception of all the fruits of the death of Christ or of Jesus Christ Himself. He who eats in a living faith eats Jesus, has the life of Jesus, Jesus Himself living in him. He lives by and in Christ. Thus He Himself has said in. John 6:58. There are, however, many who eat the Lord’s Supper without being fed and strengthened, because they do not eat in living faith. That which lives hungers after food and must eat or die. Thus also in regard to the living faith: Jesus is its food after which it hungers; in the eating thereof it lives and is sustained; without it faith must die. Where there is no hunger after Jesus, there is no faith, no life in faith, consequently no true eating of Him; there are only words, thought and imagination, only an outward, bodily eating, by which the soul is not fed nor nourished. One who is dead does not know how to eat nor can he eat. He who is alive and hungry does not need to be taught how to eat. The faith which is dead asks in a surprised and sneering tone. What does it mean to eat Jesus? It means precisely what Jesus says in John 6:57, and as St. Paul says in Ephesians 5:14, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. " Christ will show you what it means to eat Himself through faith, and have Him dwelling in thy heart, you will become hungry after Him, and the hunger will teach you to eat. Therefor, the Lord’s Supper has always been called the Sacrament of the Living, because, as a spiritual food, it presupposes spiritual life to be nourished and sustained by this food. Where there is no life, no food is needed. The dead cannot eat. Baptism awakens the dead; the Lord’s Supper nourishes, sustains and strengthens those who are awake and living. Verily, in the Lord’s Supper He is as near to us as He can possibly be on earth.
We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still;
We drink of Thee, the Fountain Head,
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.
