Even should you don’t wrestle with nervousness and melancholy, it’s sure that you already know somebody who does. The PPDA (Psychophysiologic Issues Affiliation) lists dozens of power diseases which might be straight brought on by nervousness or melancholy, together with power muscle pains, migraines, fibromyalgia, and power fatigue. Like a vicious taskmaster, nervousness and melancholy lash the thoughts till neuro-pathways of concern and ache are fashioned.

I want I may say that Christians are exempt from the results of concern, however to say so could be a lie. Even our Lord Jesus skilled nervousness at instances, which Christians are reminded of once we take part in Holy Communion. Within the Backyard of Gethsemane, Christ mentioned to his disciples, “My soul may be very sorrowful, even to demise; stay right here, and watch with me” (Matt. 26:38); Jesus was “a person of sorrows,” and knew what it meant to really feel afraid. Within the physique and blood of Christ we’re reminded of his humanity.

Wealthy Mullins, one of many most interesting Christian songwriters of the twentieth century, captured the thoughts of the anxious believer properly:

Maintain me Jesus ’trigger I’m shaking like a leaf
You’ve gotten been my king of glory
Will you be my prince of peace
I get up within the evening and really feel the darkish
It’s so scorching inside my soul
I swear there have to be blisters on my coronary heart

We all know that Mullins was writing from his personal expertise, as he battled nervousness and alcoholism. His thoughts trembled with concern; insomnia and scorching flashes wracked his physique. After I learn these lyrics, I see a person who loves God dearly however who’s caught in concern’s merciless loop.

A lot may be mentioned on the religious disciplines of prayer and fasting, church and Scripture, and generosity, and the way they might help the anxious individual domesticate private wholeness. Many trendy Christians, although, don’t all the time perceive the efficacy of Holy Communion in serving to weary believers throw off the bonds of power nervousness and despondency. Nonetheless, Jesus instructed his disciples that he’s “the bread of life,” and that “he who involves … [him] shall by no means starvation, and he who believes in  … [him] shall by no means thirst once more” (John 6:35). Jesus declared that his physique and blood carry life to an individual, and that when an individual “feeds” on him, concern and despair are rendered powerless.

Many trendy Christians, although, don’t all the time perceive the efficacy of Holy Communion in serving to weary believers throw off the bonds of power nervousness and despondency.

One other Wealthy Mullins music, “Peace: A Communion Blessing,” is an effective start line to understanding the life-giving energy of our Lord’s Supper. Within the first two verses, Mullins establishes how nervousness creates isolation. The narrator speaks to a stranger who wears a “masks” and is a “prisoner,” just like the narrator, “in these lonely hearts”; the 2 can’t reside joyfully in neighborhood with one another as a result of “a blindness separates us.” Anybody who has skilled power nervousness or melancholy is aware of how isolating such emotions are; concern makes love arduous to see and grasp. One pretends that every one is properly when in actuality one feels trapped in his or her head.

However the music doesn’t depart the narrator and the stranger in despondency—there’s hope, pleasure shouldn’t be merely wishful pondering, love may be discovered within the Sacrament of Communion, within the physique and blood of Christ:

And should peace rain down from Heaven
Like little items of the sky
Little keepers of the promise
Falling on these souls
This drought has dried
In His Blood and in His Physique
Within the Bread and on this Wine
Peace to you
Peace of Christ to you.

This lyric successfully conveys how Communion brings the peace of Christ to the repentant believer: “In His Blood and in His Physique / Within the Bread and on this Wine.” 

Church custom declares that Communion is a holy thriller the place “we thereby take part within the very Physique and Blood of Christ supplied as soon as for all. And on this substantial union between Christ… and the worshiper, we come to extra totally perceive how we’re united to Christ in our baptism and nurtured in our union with Christ by the eucharistic providing.” Christ brings freedom from sin and freedom from concern; as 1 John 4:18 notes, “There isn’t any concern in love, however excellent love casts out concern. For concern has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” Due to this fact, when a Christian partakes of the Eucharist, she is laying aside her concern. She is nurturing herself with the very individual of Christ; she is laying aside the previous mindset and patterns of tension and melancholy and placing on the peace of Christ.

The Final Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

As well as, the Church teaches that the Eucharist is “to be understood as our sacrifice providing to God—‘a mercy of peace, a sacrifice of reward.’” Simply because the Israelites supplied “animal or grain choices” to precise gratitude and like to God, when a Christian partakes within the Eucharist he’s not solely remembering what Christ did for him on the cross, however he’s additionally giving God a treasured reward, the most effective reward an individual may give God: himself united and made excellent via the Lord Jesus Christ.

We don’t should be “lonely hearts” blinded and separated from God and one another via concern; we don’t have to cover and put on “the masks” anymore. Nervousness and melancholy don’t should be our masters, for “in His Blood and in His Physique,” there’s excellent, merciful reciprocal love. This doesn’t imply that Christians who partake of Communion won’t ever once more expertise or wrestle with nervousness. We’re nonetheless creatures of mud wounded by the autumn. Nonetheless, it’s not God’s will for his youngsters to be slaves to concern; freedom may be discovered on this life, and Holy Communion, like prayer and all the opposite practices I’ve talked about, is one in all God’s presents to assist us do battle towards nervousness and despair.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes, “Blessed is he that has eaten of the Bread of affection which is Jesus. Whereas nonetheless on this world, he breathes the air of the resurrection, which the righteous will delight after they rise from the useless.” The gorgeous actuality of Holy Communion is that Christians don’t have to attend till they die to expertise the nurturing presence of God. He’s right here on this earth—on this fallen world beneath the music of the spheres, and as Mullins eloquently penned, he compassionately calls us to “lay down… [our] fears” to “come and be a part of this feast,” for “He has known as us right here, you and me.”