On the Sunday after Jesus was crucified, His disciples were stunned to learn that His tomb was empty. Yet, the possibility that He rose didn’t seem real…until they broke bread. Take Cleopas and his companion: they had no idea that the stranger interpreting Scripture to them on the road to Emmaus was the risen Savior – until: “When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him” (Lk. 24:30-31). That changed everything. They immediately returned to Jerusalem to tell those gathered together “how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Lk. 24:33-35).
On another Sunday not long after, about 3,000 souls received that Jesus is Lord and Christ and were baptized (cf. Acts 2:36, 41). Early on, the apostles taught them to be devoted to “the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42). This fulfilled Christ’s command – “Do this in remembrance of Me” – but it also began to fulfill His hope of joining them in it “in the kingdom of God” (cf. Lk. 22:16-19). Disciples who never saw Jesus with their own eyes or touched Him with their own hands could truly know Him in the breaking of the bread.
Breaking bread is communal by its very nature. When Jesus first blessed the bread and cup, they were part of a holiday meal He eagerly shared with His apostles (cf. Lk. 22:14-20). Cleopas had urged Him to stay because it was getting late when they broke bread (cf. Lk. 24:28-30). Life in the Jerusalem church was full of “attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes” (Acts 2:46). Eating together is already special – but even more so when like Jesus we set the bread and the cup apart for this purpose, blessing and giving thanks for Christ through them (cf. 1 Cor. 11:17-34).
As the gospel spread throughout the world, Christians needed this, both to remember Jesus’ sacrifice and to experience the unity He wants us to share with God and each other. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). No wonder the first Christians gathered together every Sunday to break bread: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17, cf. Acts 20:7). Breaking bread helps to make it all real for us.
So, if you have been baptized into that one body and share that one Spirit, come to the table. Something powerful happens when we gather together to break bread.
More than a ritual, the Lord’s Supper is an opportunity to be transformed by the presence of Jesus Christ Himself. Join us as we learn how to truly come to the table at https://www.georgetownchurchofchrist.com/come-to-the-table.