In John 6:54 Jesus made this remarkable statement: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." An early church leader who may have studied under John at Ephesus and would have known this teaching well was Ignatius of Antioch. Shortly after the turn of the first century he was the leading bishop, or elder, of the church at Antioch of Syria. He was arrested by the Roman authorities and sent to Rome where he died in the Colosseum as a Christian martyr during the reign of Emperor Trajan. As he traveled toward Rome he wrote several letters and one was sent to Ephesus where he might have been with John. Ignatius may have been thinking of John 6:54 when he said this about the Lord's Supper: " ... and break one loaf, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote which wards off death but yields continuous life in union with Jesus Christ."
I remembered his words one night last week. About a month ago I went to see my primary care doctor for a physical exam. I have been blessed with good health and had not seen my doctor for a long time. Strangely, after getting a good report, within two weeks I was struck down by a vicious stomach bug, sprained a shoulder muscle, and then developed a kind of asthmatic bronchitis. I don't like being sick. I am not used to it. It is an unpleasant experience, as I'm sure all of you know. It drove me back to my doctor and to my pharmacist.
Last week in the middle of the night I was thinking about this and at the same time wondering what to use for today's communion meditation when the idea struck me that there is a good analogy here. Sin is like a sickness in several ways. It is like a sickness in that it affects all of us. Is there anyone here who has not been sick? And so it is with sin. As Paul said, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
Sin is like a sickness because it leaves us feeling terrible. We hurt in a lot of ways. And sin is like a sickness because it makes us do what we don't want to do and keeps us from doing what we want to do. Paul said exactly that about sin in Romans 7 and then raised this plaintive question: "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" Which points to another similarity. Sin, like sickness, leads to death. If one sickness doesn't get you, another one will. And, of course, the Bible is clear on the ultimate effect of sin. As Paul said in Romans 5:12, "... death spread to all, because all have sinned."
When Paul cried out, "Who will set me free from the body of this death?" he answered his own question immediately with the exclamation, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Sin, like sickness, requires both a physician and a pharmacist. In Jesus Christ we have both. As we come to this table he is our Good Physician, he is our "Medicine of Immortality." "This," he said of the bread, "is my body..."; "this," he said of the cup, "is my blood." And to us all he says, 'Eat, Drink, and Live forevermore.'
