This table isn’t sturdy enough to hold what’s on it. Nor is this room big enough to contain it. This bread and wine isn’t potent enough to localize it. Seemingly. As Solomon once asked, “But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built (2Ch 6:18)!” The answer to Solomon’s question depends on whether or not God Himself determines to dwell in that house.
When we try to do the math on such mysteries, we often start at the wrong end. We think the duty rests on us to climb up to heaven to get a grip on the Infinite God. We ought to start, as always, with God Himself. The Greater must come down to the lesser. The Creator must reveal Himself to the creature. If we start there, only then can we begin to see clearly.
Calvin helps us here: “The Son of God descended miraculously from heaven, yet without abandoning heaven; was pleased to be conceived miraculously in the Virgin’s womb, to live on the earth, and hang upon the cross, and yet always filled the world as from the beginning.” A meal of bread & wine is too small a thing to signify the Risen Christ, unless the Eternal yet Incarnate Christ makes it so.
As Queen Lucy once observed in the Chronicles of Narnia: “In our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.” This table is laden with the weight of eternal glory. It’s only possible to see this marriage of transcendence with imminence when we look at the signs which God Incarnate gave to assist our faith: baptized saints partaking together of broken bread and poured wine. God’s come down, to raise us up.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
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