No wisdom is deeper than a relationship with God.

The Catholic Church calls it communion. The 'host' is consecrated and transsubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus. We eat the host to have life within us. That is communion.

The real truth of communion is more in line with what Jesus told Nicodemus in their private session. You have to be born-again. Jesus said that. When you receive Jesus as Savior, and ask him into your life, you eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Jesus was referring to what the priest does with the sacrificed lamb. He is the final sacrifice, the final lamb offering.

We can't physically eat Jesus' body, and we can't physically drink Jesus' blood. The action of our faith in obedience to receiving Jesus as our Savior ... IS the consummation of the Lord on our part.

The part that Jesus plays is HIS act of coming into our lives in such a way that we can actually feel him, and our knowledge of him is changed. We somehow KNOW He is Lord now. We consume Him by our faith, and He comes into our life ... communion. You need the ritual to do the faith act of consummation. The 'trans-substantiation' isn't in the wafer or the wine or grape juice; it is in your own body.

As I trust (even a small amount of trust) God, and receive Jesus by faith inside my life, I am born-again. It is HE who lives in me ... He is not in the wafer. The liturgy is of our body. We act out life. We are the ones who are 'trans-substantiated" (we are made a new creature in Christ). No wisdom is deeper than a relationship with Jesus. I become a temple to the Lord as I accept HIS original sacrifice IN ME. He suffered, died and rose to be in me (and you).

The lamb, at one time, died for sin. The lamb was a sign of atonement. But there was no resurrection of this lamb. There could be no transformation for the "masses." The lamb was only an impersonal, vicarious sign of forgiveness, because only the priest took part in the actual lamb ritual. There was no "life" consummation other than by the priest. An impersonal sign of forgiveness was never enough. The Lord knew that. The Lord knew that He had to truly tend to each one of us. God Himself had to come in the flesh to (yes) die for us - not die time and time again (over and over). He couldn't. So, He died once, but under the faith stipulation of consummation.

We eat his body and drink his blood as once the high priest did with the lamb, but with faith. We eat Him by faith. How does He get us to eat Him as the priest ate the lamb sacrifice? By making us all priests and altars at the same time. He became a lamb but he did not walk on 'all fours.' We became priests and altars, but we aren't Levites and we aren't made of wood (the altar). We became priests by accepting him into our lives (consuming Him by faith), being born-again; we become altars by permitting Him to die for us 'right there,' presently in our lives, on the 'table' of our body, our own life.

We eat in a new way, as did the disciples and the Samaritan woman at the well. The disciples were not cannibles. They didn't start eating His actual body, not even at the last supper. When Jesus said, "If you don't eat of my body and drink of my blood, you can have no part of me," he obviously wasn't referring to His physical body. Nor did the disciples start cutting Him up and eating Him alive. Rather, our FAITH becomes a powerful consuming act. We eat His flesh and drink His blood by our consuming act of FAITH. Our faith is THAT great and powerful. Our faith eats His life. Our faith is created in His image and likeness. He then lives in us because of our faith.

THAT ... is born-again communion!