Corpus Christi
June 2010
I have mentioned, on many occasions, that to correctly understand the Bible one must understand it as one book. It is about God revealing Himself to human beings. It is also about man’s varying attitudes towards, and understanding of, this revelation. Depending on a persons or communities understanding of this revelation the relationships with God can range from one of great fear and trembling to one of total trust, confidence and love or anything in between.
The great danger and pitfall is understand the Bible piecemeal. One must determine the overall direction of revelation in the Bible and every part of it must fit in with this direction in one way or another.
To correctly understand the Eucharist one must understand it in the context of the total revelation of the Bible.
If we want one word to accurately describe revelation in the Bible it is the word ‘Immanuel’ meaning ‘God with us.’
The whole Bible describes God’s efforts to get human beings to understand how he cares for them, how he loves them, how he cherishes them, how he is with them ( i.e. Immanuel) at all times and places and in all situations.
Firstly God tries to teach us by word through the Prophets. Then God becomes a human being called Jesus of Nazareth who walked among us, ate and drank with us, healed us, forgave us, suffered and died with us so that we might understand what ‘Immanuel’ means. And just before he died, seeing that we still did not grasp the meaning of ‘Immanuel’ he took ordinary bread and wine and gave it to his friends saying this is my body, this is my blood, go on eat and drink it.
Meaning of course that just as this bread and wine (food & drink) becomes inseparably part of the one who eats and drinks it, so also God is inseparably part of you and I.
So this is what the Eucharist is about. This is what receiving Holy Communion is about. It is a constant reminder in a very practical, straightforward and understandable way of what Immanuel means - what ‘God with us’ means.
Inevitably many devotions have built up around the Eucharist some of them quite cultic. These devotions are generally harmless and can also be helpful, as long as the Eucharist is understood in its Biblical context which is that God is inseparably with me when I sleep or wake, walk or sit, laugh or cry, in pain or in health, working or resting, talking or listening, cycling, running or driving.
The Eucharist is ‘Immanuel.’
(Example of a door and its hinge.)
So the hinge to the proper biblical understanding of the Eucharist is as follows;
I receive the Eucharist or I visit the Blessed Sacrament in the church, or do a holy hour etc. not so as to enter into God now or to be in the presence of God now but to remind myself anew that I am always in God, with God always in me, that I am always in the presence of God. The key word (the hinge) is not ‘now’ but ‘always.’
I quote from the Gospel of John; ‘Father, protect them … that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’
‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.’