Fragments
Luke 22:19
He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them.
I read of a fine cathedral window that was fashioned out of discarded broken glass fragments. The stained-glass artist had greater skill and worked harder than we do, but the principle is the same, turning fragments into beauty.
The Bible continuously mirrors the fragmentation of life and relationships – Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his sons, Abraham and Lot, Sarah and Hagar, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, (and all of those are just in Genesis!!), and then Miriam and Moses, David and Absalom, Jew and Gentile, and even Paul and Barnabas.
This past week the Christian world remembered the brokenness that brought Jesus to the cross, so that we could be freed from our wretched slavery to sin (John 8:24-36). “This is my body give to you,” he said; “this….is…. my blood…. Poured out for you.”
Jesus’ followers will break bread into fragments and call it “celebration”. And yet that will help “bring unity to all things in Heaven and on earth under Christ” Ephesians 1:10