Hlaford

There’s a way in which repetition can turn something into either a mindless tradition or a mindful skill. Our worship service culminates, every week, with this meal of the community of the baptized & redeemed. Sure…you could mindlessly partake of it, paying no heed to the what or why or how.

But being worried that folks might begin to approach this sacrament with a routine mechanism is not a good argument for not eating & drinking this meal regularly. In the hands of a skilled instructor, repetition is transformed into a marvelous skill. A coach with his athletes, a piano teacher with her students, a director with his actors employ repetition so that the action is done masterfully.  

As regards this Supper, we’re told “this do in remembrance”. Meaning, don’t just with have your brain turned on, but your eyes of faith must be transfixed upon our instructor. And our instructor in how to rightly partake is, of course, Christ our Lord.

The Lord, by His Spirit, is the one training us in how to come to the Lord’s Table for the Lord’s Supper. There’s rich insight in the Anglo-Saxon root of the very word we use to modify this Table & Supper. The word “Lord” emerged from the Old English hlaford, literally meaning: loaf-guardian. This is the table of the True Guardian of the True Loaf. He trains us here. He gives us our lessons. He corrects our errors.

Our Lord guards this loaf & gives us this loaf. By this, by sitting under His instruction, this repetition becomes a habit of holiness. If you refuse to heed the Master Bread-giver, you’ll starve even as you come, and this meal will indeed become a lifeless tradition. So heed the Lord, the Loaf-guardian, by faith, and let Him train you up from one degree of glory to another.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…