The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

1 Corinthians 11:23-24

The Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. It is such a simple act, but one that is at the heart of why we are here today. And it is an act that is filled with meaning.

I have been greatly helped by Henri Nouwen in thinking through the meaning of this act, especially in his “Life of the Beloved.” And so, I want to focus on this fourfold action at the heart of this sacred meal, described by the four verbs – take, bless, break, and give. But I want to think about how Jesus himself is taken, blessed, broken, and given to us. And then, think about how we, as his followers, live out that same pattern in our lives of faith. 

Jesus For Us

First, Jesus. Taken, blessed, broken, and given to us and to the world. What does it mean to say that Jesus was taken? It means that he was chosen for a particular task: To be our Savior. 

Jesus was not chosen to be the Son of God; he always was that. But he was chosen to be our Savior, to save us from our sins. That is why he took flesh and became one of us. 

But he was not just chosen, he was also blessed. At the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he was baptized. And coming out of the water, Jesus heard his heavenly Father bless him, saying: This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Jesus himself was chosen, and then blessed.

But Jesus also was broken, as acknowledge this week. Jesus was broken for us, in painful ways that we wish were not necessary. After sharing this meal with his disciples, he will break down in agony in the garden. He will be betrayed by his disciple and friend, Judas. He will be denied by Peter. He will be arrested and tortured. And, then, most painfully, he will be broken on the cross, when he took on our sin and felt abandoned by the Father who had first chosen and blessed him.

But Jesus was taken, blessed, and broken, so that he could be given to us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Jesus was given to us, gives himself to us, every time we eat the break and drink the cup. Every time we celebrate this sacrament. We remember that Jesus is the bread of life, who offers himself to us as the bread of life. We remember the ways in which Jesus was taken, blessed, broken, and given to us. 

Becoming the Bread of Life

But this meal is not only about Jesus. It is about us. Because we become what we eat. We ourselves become, in other words, the bread of life for this hungry, weary world. And that means that we are also taken, blessed, broken, and given.

Taken

We are here not just because we choose to be, but also because we have been chosen to be. We have been chosen by God to follow Jesus. And as his chosen followers, we have a purpose to fulfill. We have been taken, or chosen. 

Or, we might even use a different word. Rather than taken or chosen, we might use called. As Martin Luther reminds us in his Small Catechism: The Holy Spirit has called us through the gospel, and enlightened us with his gifts.

We have been called, for a specific vocation, a unique task, which no one else can accomplish but us. Each of us has been uniquely created by God, and chosen to share God’s love in a way that only we can do. We have been chosen to be bread for the world in a way that only we can. 

Blessed

But it is not enough simply to be chosen. We must also be blessed. When Jesus took the bread, he then blessed it. When we are chosen by God, we are blessed by God, before we are ever asked to do something for God. In our baptisms, to be sure, we are blessed by God, just like Jesus. 

But there are many other ways that we are blessed by God, but one way to think of it is to think of how the disciples were first blessed in that upper room. We can be blessed in that same way.

They were blessed, for example, by simply being together, as we are today. The night when Jesus was betrayed was a terrible night, not just for Jesus, but for his disciples. They were anxious, afraid, and unsure of what lay before them. And that is a very good time to be together. 

The disciples fled when Jesus needed them, that is true, but at least they managed to stick together, all except Judas. And there is something really important about sticking together, especially when there is uncertainty in the world. And isn’t there always uncertainty in the world? 

So here we are – gathered together in Jesus’ name, blessed by this community, and blessed by Jesus himself, who promises to be with us whenever we gather in his name. Just like those first disciples. 

Those first disciples were also blessed in that upper room by the meal they received, the Lord’s Supper, which began that very night, and which showed them how Jesus would give himself to them whenever they celebrated this meal. It would become a sacrament that would feed their faith and help them to remember his sacrificial love whenever they ate this bread and drank this cup. 

We who have been chosen by Jesus have also been blessed in this way. By one another. And by this meal. But blessed for what?  

Broken

Well, after Jesus takes the bread and blesses it, he breaks it. The bread can’t be distributed to the disciples without being broken. And there is a deep truth in this simple act. Because we, too, must be broken in order to be distributed, in order to be given to this world. 

But what does it mean for us to be broken? Well, we live in a broken world, 

and when we open our hearts to this world, we are broken, too. There simply is no way to love this world without having our hearts broken by it. And Jesus wants us to open our hearts to this world, and to love it in his name. Even when it breaks our hearts. 

I know that for me personally, having my heart broken by this world has been essential to my growth as a person, and has taught me to rely on Jesus more than almost anything else has. The writer Henri Nouwen writes that: 

“The great secret of the spiritual life is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity.”

It is another way of saying that all things can work together for the good for those who love God. Even our brokenness. 

Our brokenness opens us to the pain of this world. It creates compassion for this world, a willingness to suffer for it. And our brokenness brings us to the foot of the cross, where we are embraced by the love that heals all brokenness, where we receive the peace which comes from no other place than the broken heart of Jesus. 

But not only at the cross. Think again of the disciples in that upper room. Their hearts are beginning to break, as they come to embrace the reality of the moment, and as they come to realize that Jesus was serious when he said that he must suffer and die before being raised on the third day. 

But the disciples will be back in that same upper room on the third day, when Jesus will appear to them after being raised, and help them to see that the brokenness in this world, even in death, is always temporary. Unlike God’s love, which is eternal. When we embrace this truth, we are bringing our brokenness to the one who loves us and promises to heal our every wound.  

Given

So, as Christians, we are taken, blessed, and broken. And then, finally, we are ready to be given. And it is in the giving, to go back to Henri Nouwen, that it becomes clear that we are chosen, blessed and broken, not simply for our own sakes, but for the sake of others, for the sake of the world.

Again, think of those disciples in the upper room. They were being prepared by Jesus for this mission of giving themselves to the world. They had been chosen, blessed, and broken. Now they were almost ready to be given. 

When Jesus appears to them on that third day, they will be ready to be sent out to the world with the mission that Jesus gives them. They have been chosen, blessed, broken, and now given. Just like Jesus. Just like us. 

Jesus himself, we remember this day, was taken, blessed, broken, and given. For us. So that we, too, could come to see that we are chosen, blessed, broken and given to others.

As we come to the table this day, to receive the bread taken, blessed, broken and given to us, we are reminded of how Jesus was also taken, blessed, broken, and and given to us. And through this sacred meal, we become what we eat: Followers of Jesus, chosen, blessed, broken, and ready to be given to this hungry, weary world, to offer the hope and the love that we receive here, every time we are here. To the glory of God. Amen.