I was convicted

So on Sunday I was sitting in church (go figure). Come time to pass the sacrament, Pastor Wilson gave his weekly exhortation. It was incredible. We've been discussing Augustine and Calvin in Lordship and how we as Christians not so much as partake in Christ as be Christ. We die when Christ dies, we live when He lives. By His humility we are exalted, in His defeat of death we are victors. And then this little minute talk by Pastor Wilson synthesized these thoughts and practically applied them in a way that convicts me more every time I read it. God help me to be consumed as I have consumed.

Exactly So
Last week we considered the truth that we do more than consume in this meal—we are consumed as well. If the entire congregation is the loaf, as St. Paul plainly teaches, then we are—all of us—both eating and being eaten. We consume and are consumed.

Christ gives Himself to us, certainly. But we also surrender ourselves to Him in this partaking. The head of the body communicates, just as the body does. And as each part of the body eats, so each part of the body is eaten. My life for yours.

This sounds noble, and quite lovely, in this context. We are all seated in church, the bread and wine are on the table, and we have just finished worshipping the Lord. But this reality, this table, governs the next six days, and it does not leave any spaces. My life for yours feels quite different when the kids are tearing off in six different directions, when your business partner is being difficult, when an old friend appears to be losing it, when someone in the church badmouths you, when you can’t get all your work done and others aren’t helping, and when you feel misunderstood by everybody.

When such moments come—and there will likely be a number of them in the next six days—you will feel like you are being consumed. But then you should think to yourself, "ah, exactly so. I offered myself for that, just this last Sunday."