Eucharistic Meditation, April 24

?In the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it.?E

Growth and learning is awkward and difficult, especially when we are learning about something as complex as another human being, another human being who is radically different from ourselves. As I mentioned in the exhortation, Adam grew in glory, into the glory of marriage, by first going through deep sleep and a division of his rib from the rest of his body. This is the only way we can grow in marriage, through the difficult and awkward surgery that God performs on us.

The rite of the Eucharist is designed in part to teach us and pattern us to go through this kind of growth and maturation in a godly way. We begin this celebration with a whole loaf. But the loaf is broken, and the blood is, symbolically, outpoured. But the result of that breaking and pouring is a feast. In fact, there can?t be any feast without breaking the body and pouring out the blood. An unbroken loaf, unpoured wine: That does not a feast make. The Eucharist moves to the wine of joy BECAUSE the body is broken and blood poured out.

What happens here at this table is the same thing that happened to Adam in the garden. He was a single man, a single loaf, unbroken. He had shed no blood. And Yahweh said that was not good; an unbroken loaf and unshed blood cannot bring greater glory, cannot produce a feast of communion and fellowship. So Yahweh took the single loaf that was Adam?s body, broke it in two; he opened the body of Adam and his blood came out. And from that breaking and pouring Yahweh built a woman to be with Adam. Adam was glorified by the breaking and pouring, glorified by having another, a helper suitable to him.

The analogy between Genesis 2 and the Eucahrist is not accidental; the Eucharist memorializes the death of the Last Adam Jesus, whose bride came from the blood and water that flowed from His side. It is no accident that the Eucharist recapitulates the creation of woman from the man, the creation of the bride from the husband.

But the Eucharist also introduces a key element that is missing, or at best only implicit, in the creation of Eve. Jesus took bread, His body, broke it; then took wine, and distributed it. The feast depended upon the breaking and the pouring. But the new element in the Eucharist is precisely the Eucharistic element ?Ethe element of thanksgiving. Jesus took bread that was His own body, gave thanks, and then broke it in pieces; Jesus took the wine of His own blood, the wine that symbolized His own death, and gave thanks. Jesus knew that He could have His bride only if His body were broken and His blood poured out. And so, he took the bread, and gave thanks, and broke it. For the joy set before Him, the joy of consummation, He broke His body and poured out His blood.

Our marriages can grow in glory only through the awkward and difficult process of learning. But the Eucharist teaches us that the breaking and struggle that brings greater glory is not something to be endured with grim determination. The awkwardness of learning is not to be grudgingly accepted. It is to be received with thanksgiving. The Eucharist teaches us that being broken and remade is a matter of praise. And we receive it for the joy that is set before us.