What Is Communion and What Does It Mean?

"And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'" Luke 22:19

What is communion and what does it mean?

Short answer. Communion, also called the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist, is the meal Jesus gave his followers the night before he died, using bread and wine to represent his body and blood given for us (Luke 22:19-20). Christians take it to remember his death, to proclaim it until he returns (1 Corinthians 11:26), and to share, in some real way, in Christ himself and in each other (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). Exactly how Christ is present in it is where believers have argued for centuries. What isn't disputed is what it points to: a body broken and blood poured out, for you.

It began with Jesus himself, at a table, on the worst night of his life

Communion isn't a tradition the church invented later and read back into the Gospels. Jesus instituted it himself, during the Passover meal, hours before his arrest. Luke tells us he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, 'This is my body, given for you.' Then he took the cup after supper and said, 'This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood' (Luke 22:19-20). Paul, writing to the Corinthians some twenty years later, says he received this account 'from the Lord' and passed it on (1 Corinthians 11:23), which tells you how seriously the earliest church treated it. This wasn't a symbol Jesus reached for lightly. He took the ordinary stuff of a Jewish meal, unleavened bread and wine already on the table, and told his friends that from now on, this bread and this cup would mean him: his body, his blood, his death, given for them specifically. Every time the church has taken communion since, it's been doing what he asked that night: this, in remembrance of me.

Luke 22:19-20

It is remembrance, and it is proclamation, until he comes

Paul draws out what Jesus meant by 'remembrance.' After recounting the words over the bread and cup, he adds his own summary: 'For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes' (1 Corinthians 11:26). This isn't sentimental remembering, the kind you do flipping through old photographs. It's proclamation, a public act that declares something true about the world every time it happens. When a church takes communion, it's saying out loud, with actions rather than only words, that Christ died, that his death dealt with sin, and that he's coming back. That last part matters. Communion looks two directions at once: backward, to a cross outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and forward, to a return that hasn't happened yet. It sits in the middle of those two facts and says, this is where we live now, remembering what he did, waiting for what he will do. That's why it's sometimes called an 'already and not yet' meal. It's grief and hope served on the same plate.

1 Corinthians 11:26

It is communion, not just commemoration: sharing in Christ and in each other

The word itself matters. Paul asks, 'The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread' (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). Whatever else is happening at the table, Paul is clear that it isn't merely a memory exercise. There's participation, koinonia in the Greek, a real sharing in Christ that happens through this ordinary act of eating and drinking. And it does something horizontal as well as vertical. Because the loaf is one, the church that eats it is one body, whatever divides them on any other day. In years of ministry I've watched this happen in small, unremarkable ways: people who had barely spoken all week, kneeling at the same rail, receiving the same bread, from the same hand. Communion won't fix a quarrel by itself. But it keeps insisting, meal after meal, that the people at that table belong to each other because they belong to him.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17

It carries a warning, and the warning is about how we come, not whether we are perfect

Paul's teaching on communion includes a hard passage that has frightened a lot of sincere Christians. He writes that whoever eats and drinks 'in an unworthy manner' will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord, and urges each person to 'examine himself' before eating (1 Corinthians 11:27-28). Read in context, this was written to a church where the wealthy were eating without waiting for poorer members who came late from work, turning the Lord's table into an occasion for exclusion (1 Corinthians 11:20-22). The 'unworthy manner' Paul confronts is careless disregard for others at the table, not the ordinary imperfection every believer brings to it. Self-examination here means asking whether you're approaching the table in a way that honours what it is, not conducting a moral audit to see if you've earned a seat. Nobody earns this seat. That's rather the point of the meal.

1 Corinthians 11:27-28

Where this is not simple

The unresolved question in church history is what actually happens to the bread and wine, and to us, when we take them. Roman Catholic teaching holds that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation), while retaining the appearance of bread and wine. Lutherans speak of Christ's body and blood present in, with and under the elements. Calvin and the Reformed tradition held that the bread and wine remain bread and wine, but that believers really feed on Christ spiritually, by the Holy Spirit, through faith, as they eat. Many Baptist and free church traditions understand it as a memorial, a picture and pledge, without claiming any change in the elements themselves. These aren't small differences. They've divided churches for a thousand years and more. I was trained in a Baptist tradition, and I land closer to Calvin than to either extreme: I don't believe the bread becomes something else physically, but I don't think it's only a memory aid either. Something real is offered and received there, through faith, by the Spirit. Christians who disagree with me on this aren't disagreeing lightly, and I'd rather say so plainly than pretend the question is settled.

If this is not theoretical for you

If communion has become a source of dread rather than comfort, you're not the first person to feel that. Some people carry so much guilt that 'examine yourself' sounds like a diagnosis they'll fail. Others can't get to a church building at all because of illness, and grieve the table they can't reach. A pastor can talk you through what the passage actually says, and many will bring communion to someone housebound. But if what you're carrying isn't guilt about a specific sin so much as a persistent, grinding sense of unworthiness that won't lift no matter how many times you hear grace preached, that pattern is worth naming to a doctor or a counsellor as well as a pastor. Scripture isn't a substitute for treating depression or obsessive guilt, and no pastor worth listening to will tell you otherwise. Faith and medical care aren't competitors here.

Questions people ask

How often should Christians take communion?

Scripture doesn't give a fixed schedule. Acts 2:42 describes the earliest church devoting themselves to 'the breaking of bread' as part of regular gathered life, which some read as frequent, even weekly. Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 11 assume it happens often enough to need correcting, but he doesn't specify a rhythm. Churches have landed on weekly, monthly and quarterly practice in good conscience. What matters more than frequency is that it's taken seriously each time it happens.

Can I take communion by myself at home if I can't get to church?

Every biblical account of the Lord's Supper happens within a gathered community, which is part of why most church traditions are cautious about private, solitary communion and encourage instead a minister or elder bringing it to someone housebound or ill. If that's genuinely not possible, speak to your pastor about what your own church's practice allows rather than assuming. The desire itself, wanting to remember him even when you can't reach the table, isn't a small thing.

If you want to go further

Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper by Keith A. Mathison

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