Communion…The Lord’s Supper…The Breaking of Bread…The Blessed Sacrament… The Eucharist. So many terms for the same celebration! I grew up in a Protestant Christian home. We usually referred to the Lord’s Supper as “Communion.” I appreciate that term, as it brings to mind the act of partaking in the Lord’s Supper with the community of Christians who are saved by our belief in Jesus and His atoning work on the cross. While growing up, I knew that other faith traditions preferred other terms, most of which are fairly self-explanatory. I was also aware that my Catholic friends referred to the Lord’s Supper as “the Eucharist,” but I never really knew where that term came from, or what it actually means.

            Well, I am currently studying Greek, and as I was looking up a totally unrelated term in my Greek Lexicon (a fancy word for dictionary), my eye was drawn to the term εὐχάριστος (eucharistos). Clearly, this must be where the word “Eucharist” came from. At the time I’m writing this, I haven’t yet come across that word in the vocabulary lists for my Greek class. After recognizing it as the basis of the term “Eucharist,” I was intrigued to find that it means “grateful, pleasing, mindful of benefits, thankful.” [1][1] The verb form of this word is εὐχαριστέω (eucharisteo), meaning “to thank, to give thanks, to be made a matter of thankfulness.”[2][2] Of course I wanted to know how this word came to refer to the Lord’s Supper, so I went to Scripture to read the passages about the Last Supper. The term is used once in both Matt 26:26-29 and Mark 14:22-25. Both of these passages use the term εὐχαριστήσας, the form of the word meaning “given thanks” (as in “after He had given thanks”), as Jesus takes up the cup to share with His disciples. Luke 22:14-20 uses the word twice. In this Luke passage Jesus “gives thanks” once prior to breaking the bread, and once before passing the cup. As Paul instructs the Corinthian church about proper behavior in their celebration of the Lord’s Supper, he uses εὐχαριστήσας as he describes Jesus giving thanks prior to breaking the bread (1 Cor 11:24). Clearly, thanksgiving was an important part of the Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with His disciples.

            I love that Dr. Mounce included the phrase “mindful of benefits” in his lexicon’s description of the meaning of the word εὐχαριστος. In today’s culture, we say “thank you” a lot. Appropriately, any polite person is well-acquainted with this phrase. I wonder though, how often do we say “thank-you,” or recite a quick prayer of thanksgiving before we eat a meal, but we don’t really think about the benefit we gained from the person we thanked or from the food we ate? I cannot think of any benefit that is more deserving of my mindfulness and my gratitude than the grace I received through the body and blood of my Savior, Jesus. Mindfulness is a big buzzword in our culture right now. As someone who struggles with out-of-control busyness, I definitely could use a bit more mindfulness most of the time. Why not employ a bit of mindfulness to my prayer life, and spend some time being a whole lot more focused on the gratitude I that owe to my Savior. This is very convicting for me, because He is worthy of infinitely more praise and gratitude than I actually give Him on any given day. Busyness should not keep me from praying prayers of praise and gratitude to my Lord.

            There are so many aspects of the Lord’s Supper that are worthy of our contemplation. Certainly, we should be mindful of our community and our place within the greater Church as we partake in Communion. Yes, we should meditate on our need for grace, and the perfect, once-for-all atoning sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross (Heb 10:1-25 is one of my favorite passages for meditation on this). However, the term “Eucharist” brings out such an important piece of our celebration of the Lord’s Supper. As we partake in the bread and the wine (or grape juice), let’s not forget that we should be overwhelmingly grateful. Let’s be grateful for our salvation. Let’s be grateful that God loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. Let’s fall to our knees as we thank Jesus for His willingness to sacrifice Himself in order to restore the relationship between our sinful selves and the holy Lord. Rather than finding differences between the various Christian faith traditions (such as what we call the Lord’s Supper), let’s be thankful that the “big C” Church is alive and well, and that we belong to a giant family of those who love God and with whom we will spend eternity in heaven.

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[1] [1] William D. Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 227.

[2][2] Ibid.