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When we come to the table we come pale, with light breath, a weakened pulse. We live in a world far from God, and we find ourselves doubting during the week. We muddle along with our weaknesses, our repeated failings, our unconquerable sins, our aches and pains. In that condition, bruised and pale, we are invited by Christ to his table to celebrate life. We experience the gracious flow of his forgiveness and love and healing—a murmur to us that we are accepted and made alive, transfused.

"I am the Living One," Christ said to the awestruck apostle John in a vision. "I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!" (Rev. 1:18). The Lord's Supper sums up all three tenses: the life that was and died for us, the life that is and lives in us, and the life that will be and will come for us. It offers a personal participation in the timelessness of God's provision for man. In the experience of Eucharist, I focus on transfused life, not on death.

Jesus Christ did not convey himself through writing. Nor did he convey himself genetically; if he had, his offspring would have been one-half Christ, one-fourth Christ, one-sixteenth Christ, until today when faint evidence of his bloodline would remain. Rather, he conveys himself personally, nutritiously, offering to each one of us the power of his own resurrected life. No other New Testament image—shepherd, building, bride—expresses the concept of "Christ in us" so well.

Recall the words that scandalized his followers: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me" (John 6:54-57). He is real food, and real drink. The Anglican priest and poet George Herbert expressed this in "The Agonie":

Who know not Love, let him assay

And taste the juice, which on the cross a pike

Did set again abroach; then let him say

If ever he did taste the life.

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,

Which my God feels as blood; but 1, as wine.

This article originally appeared in the March 18, 1983, issue of Christianity Today. At the time, Brand was the head of rehabilitation at the U.S. Public Health Service leprosy hospital in Carville, Louisiana. The article is adapted from the book In His Image.

Other stories appearing on our site today:

Noted Surgeon and Author Paul Brand Dies at Age 89 | Connected his pioneering work with leprosy and his missionary faith.

Blood, Part 1: The Miracle of Cleansing | We moderns are repelled by the thought of blood cleansing, but biologically and spiritually the precious liquid does exactly that. (February 18, 1983)

Blood, Part 2: The Miracle of Life | A well-known surgeon talks about that miraculous red river within us as an emblem of life. (March 4, 1983)

God's Astounding Laws of Nature | "I like to think of God as developing his skills," said Dr. Paul Brand. Interviewed by Philip Yancey (December 1, 1978)

A Surgeon's View of Divine Healing | Do doctors waste their time by doing slowly and painstakingly what could have been done in the twinkling of an eye? (November 25, 1983)

The Scars of Easter | He knows the wounds of humanity. His hands prove it. (April 5, 1985)

A Handful of Mud | Soil is life. Can we preserve it for future generations? (April 16, 1985)

More information on Brand, including obituaries, are available at the World Concern website and a website set up by Brand's secretary, Molly Coyner Cozens.

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July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47