The bread that we break is a participation in the body of Christ.” The bread represents the one body, and in the ceremony of the supper, we break the bread. Christ is not broken. “Not a bone shall be broken,” says the Psalmist. What is the breaking of the bread then? It is the breaking of the Christ from the apostles, his body, and his people, the new Israel. It is division of Christ from the earth, his death on the cross. But it is a promise that he will be joined again to his body. Abram divided the animals in our passage today, in the hope that they would be joined together in new resurrection life. So, we break the bread, demonstrating how Christ our Lord died, and was separated from his body and yet the Lord raised him from the dead. So to, in Christ, you die to the old man, you are separated from the realities of this earth, so that you may be raised and exalted with Christ. Paul says that in the Spirit, we already are raised to the heavenly places with him. And so we are in the heavenly places, even while we are in this body of death on this earth. It is that reality that demonstrates what Paul means, when he speaks about how we show forth the death of Christ in 1 Corinthians 11.
