Giving Thanks – Communion

By Brooke Momblow

“…you gave them bread from heaven for their hunger.”  Nehemiah 9:15

Communion, the dictionary says, is the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

We experience communion with Christ through our prayers and through our thanksgiving. Eucharisteo means 'to give thanks’. Eucharist is communion when we come together in the spirit of unity to give thanks for Christ’s sacrifice.

 Saying the “Blessing” or “Grace” or “Giving Thanks” before a meal is in fact a blessing of the food, making it Holy and Sacred.  It is humbly acknowledging God’s life sustaining provision in our lives.  It doesn’t matter if the meal before us is simply packaged top ramen or a feast that took effort, time, and many ingredients to create.  Taking the food into our bodies sustains and nourishes us and, as we receive the blessing into us with thanks, it becomes an act of worship.

These thoughts dramatically affect the way I look at the food on my table. They dramatically broaden my view of communion with Christ. The work of my hands becomes laden with meaning. Which leads to a new appreciation of the Holy that runs like a vein everywhere I look. The feast and the fast, the labor and the rest, in all these things thanksgiving is made to God, not thanks-feeling. 

Throughout the Bible, relationship to food is used to describe and instruct the kind of intention, discipline, joy, and sacredness with which we are to approach life and relationship with God.

 

Our daily bread is more than just the food we eat. Our daily bread is the Word of God and Provision of the Spirit that sustains our spirit-man. This bread strengthens and grows our intimacy with Jesus.

After Jesus gave thanks and completely filled the hungry thousands by multiplying whatever the disciples could scrounge up - the crowd called for Jesus to perform a miracle - to give them manna from heaven! Hadn’t he just done that? Then Jesus tells the crowd that he is the bread from heaven.

The bread of Jesus’ body for the hunger of the world. The communion we have with God because this bread was broken. The banquet table we look forward to at the wedding supper of the Lamb. The feast of thanks we celebrate together this week, separately, in the spirit of unity.

-Giving thanks. Communion with God the Father and each other.  

-Blessing food makes it sacred nourishment, receiving the gift into oneself.

-What belief in our minds and hearts might cause us to miss the miracle of manna already provided for us in our life?

-If we do not have the kind of food we desire, do we refuse to eat at all?

-We often know the Revelation stories of beasts and wars, but how well do we know the promise of The Banquet?

Our Father, we give thanks for the time we have together to appreciate each other. We give thanks for your presence which is shared at our table. We give thanks for your abundant provisions. We pray your guidance toward paths of righteousness and wisdom. May our conversation be joyful, edifying and encouraging. Strengthen us, O God, to share your good news and to serve where you call us. We pray, humbly, in the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen.

— Madge P. Williams

 

“Blessed and fortunate and happy and spiritually prosperous (in that state in which the born-again child of God enjoys His favor and salvation) are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God), for they shall be completely satisfied!”  Matthew 5:6 AMPC

 “WAIT and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing]. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy].”  Isaiah 55:1-2  AMPC