A few years ago I “discovered” Johann Gerhard through Meditations on Divine Mercy and got hooked on his writings. This past week I received a new addition for the bookshelf — “An Explanation of the History of the Suffering and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ” (5/3/11: No longer available from Repristination Press) — which I’m reading through this Lenten season.  Today’s reading had this to say about the Lord’s Supper.

In this holy body You will find life, for He was given into death for the life of the world. In this holy blood you will find forgiveness of sin, for it was shed for the forgiveness of sin.

Ponder especially here the wisdom of God. The Lord Christ took upon Himself flesh and blood from our nature. He exalted and embellished it in His personal union with divine, incomprehensible attributes.  He now gives that back to us again in the Holy Supper so that our nature no longer need be distanced from Him; but, on the contrary, through this eating and drinking of the Supper we again have restored to us that which Adam had lost with his forbidden eating. [40-41]