The Real Presence of Christ in Communion Explained

Nourishment, Real Presence, and the Ongoing Work of Sanctification

There is something beautifully ordinary about the Lord’s Table.

Bread.

Wine, or in many Methodist congregations, grape juice.

A gathered community.

Words we have heard many times before: “This is my body… This is my blood.”

Yet Christians have gathered around this simple meal for nearly two thousand years because we believe something extraordinary happens there.

For John Wesley, Holy Communion was not merely an occasional ceremony or a way of remembering something Jesus did long ago. It was a means of grace, one of the ordinary ways Christ meets his people, nourishes their faith, assures them of his love, and continues the work of making them holy.

The Wesleyan understanding of Communion invites us to approach the Table expecting more than remembrance.

We come expecting grace.

The Table Begins With Jesus

Before there was a Methodist understanding of Communion, there was a table in Jerusalem.

On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus gathered his disciples for a meal.

Paul preserves the church’s early remembrance of what happened:

“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me'” (1 Corinthians 11:23-24, NIV).

Then Jesus took the cup and identified it with the new covenant in his blood.

From the beginning, therefore, Communion has been inseparable from the saving work of Christ.

At the Table, we remember the cross.

We proclaim Christ’s death.

We celebrate the new covenant.

We anticipate his return.

But Wesley believed something else was happening as well.

Christ meets us there.

Communion as a Means of Grace

Wesley described the means of grace as outward practices through which God ordinarily communicates grace to us.

Prayer is a means of grace.

Searching the Scriptures is a means of grace.

Fasting is a means of grace.

And Holy Communion is a means of grace.

This distinction matters because it means Communion is not primarily something we do for God.

It is something God does for us.

We come hungry. God feeds.

We come weak. God strengthens.

We come aware of our failures. God reminds us of mercy.

We come longing to become more like Christ. God gives grace.

In his sermon “The Means of Grace,” Wesley identifies receiving the Lord’s Supper as one of the practices Christ instituted through which believers may expect God’s gracious action.

The Table is not a reward for Christians who have finally gotten themselves together.

Thank God for that, because it would be a rather empty table.

It is nourishment for people who know they need grace.

More Than Remembering

Many Christians understandably emphasize Jesus’ command, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

And we should remember.

We remember Christ’s incarnation, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection. We remember that our salvation has been accomplished through Jesus Christ and not through our own righteousness.

But the Wesleyan understanding of Communion does not stop with memory.

Holy Communion is not merely looking backward toward an absent Christ.

We believe the risen Christ is present with his people.

This places Wesley within the broad sacramental tradition of historic Christianity. As Thomas Oden explains in Classic Christianity, the sacraments are outward signs through which God communicates divine grace. They point beyond themselves, but they are not therefore empty symbols.

The Lord who instituted the meal continues to meet his church through it.

What Do Methodists Mean by Real Presence?

Christians have debated the nature of Christ’s presence in Communion for centuries.

Methodists have generally resisted trying to explain precisely how Christ is present in the bread and cup.

We do not need to solve the mystery before we can receive the gift.

The Wesleyan tradition affirms a real spiritual presence of Christ at the Table. Christ is not physically re-sacrificed, nor is Communion merely an exercise in remembering someone who is far away.

The risen Christ is genuinely present by the Holy Spirit.

Charles Wesley gave poetic expression to this sacramental mystery in his Eucharistic hymns. Rather than reducing Communion to an intellectual explanation, the Wesley brothers invited Christians to receive what Christ promises with faith, wonder, and thanksgiving.

There are mysteries that are better received than dissected.

Communion is one of them.

Grace We Can Taste

Christianity is remarkably physical.

God created a material world and called it good.

The Word became flesh.

Jesus touched lepers, ate with sinners, washed feet, broke bread, and rose bodily from the grave.

It should not surprise us, then, that God communicates grace through ordinary physical things.

Water in baptism.

Bread and the cup in Communion.

In the Lord’s Supper, grace becomes tangible.

We hear the promise.

We see the bread broken.

We receive it in our hands.

We taste.

The sacrament reminds us that salvation is not an abstract theory. God is restoring whole human beings and, ultimately, the whole creation.

The Table gives us a foretaste of that renewal.

Communion and Justifying Grace

The Table also brings us repeatedly back to the cross.

“This is my body.”

“This is my blood.”

Communion confronts us with both the seriousness of sin and the abundance of mercy.

We cannot save ourselves.

Christ has given himself for us.

For Wesley, this made Communion deeply connected with the assurance of forgiveness. The sacrament directs us away from our performance and toward Christ’s finished work.

We do not approach the Table announcing our worthiness.

We approach confessing our need.

And there we hear again the good news: Christ has died for us.

The Table becomes a place where pardon is remembered, proclaimed, and received by faith.

Communion and Sanctifying Grace

Yet Wesley’s theology of Communion does not end with forgiveness.

The grace we receive at the Table is also sanctifying grace.

God intends to make us holy.

This is crucial for understanding Communion in a Wesleyan way. We do not simply return to the Table because we keep forgetting what Jesus did. We return because we continually need Christ to form his life within us.

Communion nourishes the life begun in us by grace.

Just as physical food strengthens the body, sacramental food strengthens us for holy living.

In The Theology of John Wesley, Kenneth Collins emphasizes the dynamic character of Wesley’s understanding of salvation. Grace pardons, but grace also transforms. God’s purpose is the restoration of the divine image and the formation of holy love.

At the Table, we offer ourselves again to God.

Our pride.

Our anger.

Our fears.

Our desires.

Our relationships.

Our wounds.

We receive Christ so that, by the Spirit, we may increasingly become like Christ.

Communion Is Never Merely Private

There is another reason the word Communion matters.

We do not come to the Table alone.

Paul writes:

“Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf” (1 Corinthians 10:17, NIV).

Communion joins us not only to Christ but also to one another.

This has enormous implications.

We cannot receive the bread of Christ while casually despising the body of Christ.

We cannot celebrate reconciliation with God while refusing even to desire reconciliation with our neighbors.

We cannot receive the generosity of grace and remain indifferent to the hungry, poor, lonely, and forgotten.

The Table forms a people.

This is deeply Wesleyan. Personal holiness and social holiness cannot finally be separated. The grace that draws us into communion with God also draws us into love for our neighbor.

Why Wesley Wanted Frequent Communion

Wesley’s high view of the sacrament explains why he strongly encouraged frequent Communion.

In his sermon “The Duty of Constant Communion,” Wesley argued against the excuses Christians offered for receiving infrequently. If Christ has commanded us to receive and offers grace through the sacrament, why would we deliberately stay away?

Wesley himself received Communion frequently and encouraged Methodists to do the same.

This was not empty ritualism.

It was spiritual hunger.

If Communion is truly a means through which Christ strengthens believers, then frequent Communion makes sense. We do not say, “I ate several weeks ago, so I probably do not need food today.”

The Christian life requires continual nourishment.

So does growth in grace.

The Table and Christian Perfection

There is something particularly beautiful about connecting Holy Communion with Wesley’s vision of Christian perfection.

Christian perfection does not mean flawless performance. Wesley understood it primarily as perfect love, a heart increasingly filled with love for God and neighbor.

And what do we encounter at the Table?

Self-giving love.

“This is my body, given for you.”

The Table continually returns us to the shape of divine love.

Christ gives himself.

Christ welcomes sinners.

Christ creates community.

Christ feeds the hungry.

Christ pours himself out for the life of the world.

Every time we receive Communion, we are being invited into that same cruciform pattern.

We receive the life of Christ so that the life of Christ might increasingly be seen in us.

A Foretaste of the Coming Kingdom

Communion also points forward.

Jesus tells his disciples that he will eat and drink with them again in the fulfillment of God’s kingdom.

The book of Revelation ends with the imagery of a wedding feast.

The Christian Table therefore looks in several directions at once.

We look backward to the cross.

We look upward to the risen Christ.

We look around at the body of Christ.

We look inward as the Spirit sanctifies us.

And we look forward to the feast that is coming.

Every celebration of Holy Communion is a small anticipation of the new creation.

The world is not yet fully healed.

Death has not yet disappeared from our experience.

Sin and injustice remain.

But at the Table, the church tastes the future.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

Come to the Table Hungry

Perhaps the Wesleyan theology of Communion can finally be summarized with one word:

Come.

Come when your faith feels strong.

Come when your faith feels weak.

Come when you are joyful.

Come when you are weary.

Come when you are painfully aware of how much growing in grace remains to be done.

Do not come because you have earned a place.

Come because Christ has invited you.

The Table is not a trophy case for the spiritually accomplished.

It is a place of nourishment for disciples who are still being made holy.

Here Christ meets us.

Here grace feeds us.

Here the Spirit continues the work of sanctification.

Here strangers become family around one loaf and one cup.

And here, for a moment, we taste the feast of the kingdom that is still to come.

A Closing Prayer

Gracious Lord Jesus Christ,

Thank you for meeting us at your Table.

When we are hungry, feed us with your grace. When we are weak, strengthen us. When we have sinned, turn our hearts again toward your mercy.

Through the bread and cup, deepen our communion with you and with one another. By the power of the Holy Spirit, continue your sanctifying work within us until our hearts are filled with holy love.

Make us a people shaped by your Table, ready to give ourselves in love for the life of the world.

And keep before us the joyful hope of the day when we will feast with you in the fullness of your kingdom.

Amen.