Dangerous Table Wine

How dangerous is the bread and wine at this Table?  Another way to ask this is to say, “how potent is the bread and wine?”  Well, it is potent enough that if it is taken in hypocrisy, particularly the hypocrisy of separating yourself from other believers, it has been known to make some sick and even die.

And so two things.  First, if it has been your habit or conviction to partake of the cup with grape juice – that is still here in the tray and no one is looking over your particular shoulder.  You may have been convinced and today you should partake of wine.  You may have been challenged to think or rethink this and so you should do so and consider changing later.

Secondly, consider the danger of the rite in this way.  As we partake of the bread we are proclaiming that we are all of one loaf, one body.  Though we are broken, we are joined together in Christ who was broken for us that we might be one body.  Then, when we partake of the wine, we are declaring that we, like Christ, are willing to die, to have our blood shed, for that body – which is to say that you are declaring to the person you are passing the tray to – “Just as Jesus gave His life for me, so I am willing to give my life for you.”