The body and the blood
Finding meaning in the Eucharist
April 2, 2008
Carl Hildebrand
The Christian ritual of the Eucharist often remains obscured behind debates over its specific or narrower theological nature. Substance, accidents, transubstantiation, consubstantiation, virtualism, symbolism—these discussions are important in their own right. However, in focusing too narrowly on the details of this ritual, we sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. For regardless of one’s particular theological or confessional commitment, the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper is always treated as the most solemn of events. There is indeed a powerful and beautiful reality at work in this ritual of thanksgiving.
At the Eucharist, the consciousness of the individual Christian is oriented primarily towards Christ. The bread and wine, His body and blood, make present the gravity of His love and sacrifice for the individual and for the church. This assures the Christian that s/he is one who has already been judged and redeemed by having been reconciled to God in Christ. Moreover, in the bread we see the human enterprises of agriculture, industry and work all gathered together while in the wine we see the joy and pleasure of festivity and fellowship. These elements too have been judged and reconciled to their Creator and redeemed, made into stuff of the new creation.
Moreover, the church is seen at the centre of this new creation in which the Christian participates and indwells, as s/he celebrates the Eucharist on a regular basis. In this way, the Eucharist fundamentally resituates the human person in a world that is lived from Christ and sustains its being only in Christ; a world that is complete and intact with all of its gritty human realities including work, industry, festivity, fellowship and eating.
This space opened up by the Eucharist also has a powerful social dimension. It reveals that our individual identity is bound up with the other. In the Eucharist, we receive the grace of Christ in the presence of the other. This is the negation of self-sufficiency and selfish individualistic pursuit. We have been grafted into the body of Christ and our behaviour is primarily re-oriented towards God and towards the other amidst a whole network of others. This greater whole reaches beyond our own desires and at the same time turns back upon our own self to condition and shape these desires. This is life together, life in true communion, only made possible by the body and blood of Christ.
One of the most beautiful elements of this communion is that it is precisely communion and not absorption. For we retain our unique self and all the differences from the whole that are implied therein, all the while remaining fully and faithfully a part of the whole. The communion of the church is the communion of difference; difference is intrinsic to fellowship in the body of Christ. Provided that common absolutes are guaranteed and their validity is not put into question, the diversity of the church is a rich resource that enables us to enact the love of Christ for the world in a variety of ways. Recall the way in which Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that the church is made up of many parts that form one body, complete with hands, feet, ears and eyes. Without each of these parts, the greater whole (the body) could not function properly. There is freedom in communion.
Fundamentally, it is this love of Christ that binds us all together in perfect unity. Without the love of Christ, the church would not be possible. And without enacting this love that we receive from Christ, true communion could not exist. This love and grace of Christ for the church, humanity and creation is the fundamental reality that is communicated to us through the enactment of the Lord’s Supper or participation in the Eucharist. The power and beauty of this reality should serve as the ground and source of our Christian existence as individuals inseparably bound together into one body, the church. It is essential that we dwell in the light of this reality—reality in and from the grace and love of Christ.
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