A sealing and a sending
By Jessica Brodie
All of worship is a spiritual experience, but sometimes a moment in worship hits me in an unusually profound way. This happened recently when I was visiting my sister and we went to her church. It was Communion Sunday that week, and as the pastor spoke the blessing over us and I swallowed the tiny wafer provided, a word instantly flashed across my brain, almost searing itself upon my heart.
Sealed. You are sealed.
I closed my eyes, and suddenly my mind filled with a vision: the Last Supper, with Jesus at the table standing before his friends and offering his body and his blood in the bread and the wine as a new covenant.
I opened my eyes. The word reverberated once more: Sealed.
Now, I’m no stranger to communion. I grew up in a Lutheran church where we took communion every week as a normal part of the liturgy. Today I’m part of a Methodist church where we celebrate the Eucharist every quarter. All denominations do it a little differently, but the root is the same—it is a holy moment of oneness with the Lord, when we remember the covenant Jesus established with us and particulate in a sacred meal together. It is always a spiritual experience, and for me, I do feel the Holy Spirit rushing through me as I take communion.
But that particular moment was different. I always feel a transformation, but that day my soul thrummed with a new connection. My brain and heart clutched onto the oneness of the experience.
The ritual of communion, as many of us know, comes from Matthew 26, when Jesus had gathered with his disciples to celebrate the Passover meal. As the Bible tells us, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom’” (Matthew 26:26-28 NIV).
I know now it was the concept of covenant I was seizing upon with the word “sealed.” That’s what God was reminding me. For that is what is actually happening when we take communion: we’re being sealed anew. Part of the body of Christ. Bound with him in a covenant.
That sealing is like a brand, a permanent tattoo upon my soul that marks me as belonging to Jesus. He claims me as his own.
But here’s the thing. Being sealed in Christ is not only an identity but also a calling. It is a truth and a task, a sealing and a sending.
Not only does Jesus mark us as his own, but shortly after this, he tells us our job: to go into the world and make disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world (Matthew 28:19-20). It makes me think of the covenant I made when I married my husband. As we stood before our pastors, I promised to be his wife, and he promised to be my husband, but that wasn’t the end of the story. It’s not just an instant new role or last name I got, period, the end. It was the start of my new calling: to live my life as part of a unit—me, Matt, and the Lord. We had now become a family, and the decisions I made touched him, too.
My job as a wife (and his as a husband) is not only an identity. It affects the decisions I make and the actions I take. What I do in my life now doesn’t just affect me. It affects my husband, too. So therefore whatever I do reflects on us as a unit.
The same thing applies to the covenant between us and the Lord. At our baptism and whenever we take communion, we’re reminded: being a Christian is an identity and a calling. A sealing and a sending. That’s why, after we take communion, the pastor thanks God for the holy mystery of the sacrament and then issues a “sending forth,” saying something along the lines of, “Grant that we may go into the world in the strength of Your Spirit, to give ourselves for others, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Today, whether or not you take communion, I pray my reflection reminds you of some important truths. Jesus loves YOU. If you believe and repent, you are counted among his children and will have eternal life, no matter the sins of your past. It’s a gift from God, something you can’t possibly earn. We are sealed in him, and we have a job to share this same opportunity with everyone we can in every way we can.
So remember this sealing as you go and do his work.
God bless you, my friend. You matter!
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THANKS TO MY SPONSORS: MATT BRODIE, KATHLEEN PATELLA, AND BILLY ROBINSON.
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