57. This Is My Body! This Is My Blood!
“Whoever receives My Word receives Me”, the Son of God told His disciples, “One truly eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood in reality!”
This is the meaning of the words spoken by the Son of God at the institution of the Lord’s Supper, which He symbolized with the meal in commemoration of His earthly life. How then could it come about that fierce disputes flared up over this among scholars and churches? The meaning is so simple and so clear if one takes as a basis that the Son of God, Christ Jesus, was the Word of God made flesh.
How could He have spoken more clearly than with these simple words: ‘He who receives my word eats my flesh and drinks my blood!” Also when He said: “The Word is truly My Flesh and My Blood!” He had to express it this way because He Himself was the Living Word in flesh and blood. However, in all subsequent transmissions, the main point has been omitted time and again: the reference to the Word that walked on earth! As this was not understood, it was deemed secondary. Consequently, the entire Mission of Christ was misunderstood, mutilated and distorted.
Even the disciples of the Son of God, despite their faith, were unable to correctly understand their Master's Words at that time, just as they had never correctly understood so much of what He had said before. Christ Himself often enough expressed His sadness about this. In their childlike simplicity, they simply shaped the meaning of the Lord’s Supper in the way they had understood it. It was only natural that they passed on the words that were not entirely clear to them in a way that corresponded to their own understanding, and not in the way the Son of God had meant them. —
Jesus was the Word of God made flesh! Therefore, whoever truly received His Word within themselves also took Him into themselves.
And if a person allows the Word of God that is offered to them to become alive within them, so that it becomes second nature in their thoughts and actions, then they also bring the Spirit of Christ to life within themselves, because the Son of God was the incarnate, Living Word of God!
One only needs to make the effort finally to penetrate this train of thought correctly. They must not only read it and chatter about it, but must also try to make this train of thought vividly alive, that is, to quietly experience its meaning in living images. Then they will also truly experience the Lord’s Supper, provided that they recognize in it the receiving of the living Word of God, the meaning and will of which they must, of course, understand thoroughly beforehand.
It is not as simple as so many believers think. Passive acceptance of the Lord’s Supper can bring them no benefit; for what comes alive, like the Word of God, wants and must also be taken in a living way. The Church cannot breathe life into the Lord’s Supper on behalf of others if the communicants have not already prepared within themselves the place to receive it properly.
One also sees images that aim to convey the beautiful saying: ‘I am knocking!’ The images are quite correct. The Son of God stands at the door of the hut and knocks, seeking admission. But here, once again, humans have added something from their own thinking, letting the covered table inside the dwelling be seen through the slightly open door. This gives rise to the idea that no one who asks for food or drink should be turned away. The idea is beautiful and also in accordance with the words of Christ, but it is too narrowly interpreted.
“I am knocking” means more than that! Charity is only a small part of the message of the Word of God.
When Christ says, ‘I knock,’ He means that the Word of God, which He embodies, is knocking on the door of the human soul, not asking for entry, but demanding entry! Humans should receive the Word given to them in its entirety. The soul should open its door for the entry of the Word! If it follows this demand, then the coarse material deeds of humans of earth will naturally be of such as the “Word” demands.
People always seek only intellectual understanding, which means dissection and thus diminution – a narrowing of boundaries. Therefore, they repeatedly run the risk of recognizing only fragments of everything great, as has happened again.
The Incarnation – the Living Word of God becoming human – will always have to remain a mystery on earth because the beginning of this event took place in the Divine Realm. However, the human spirit is unable to penetrate into the Divine Realm, so the first link in the chain of events in the later becoming Flesh remains concealed from human understanding.
It is therefore not surprising that precisely this symbolic act of the Son of God, involving the distribution of bread and wine, has not yet been understood by humanity. But anyone who, having been given this explanation, which allows them to form a picture, still wants to argue against it is merely proof that the limits of their understanding of the Spiritual has been reached. Their insistence of the previous unnatural interpretation of these Words of Christ would only testify to unscrupulous stubbornness.
