Eucharistic meditation, Second Sunday After Easter

Matthew 11:25, 27: At that time Jesus answered and said, I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes . . . . All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

In His prayer, Jesus describes an exclusive relationship with the Father, a relationship of mutual but exclusive knowledge. The Father knows the Son and the Son the Father, but no one else knows either. Except, astonishingly, Jesus says that the Son reveals the Father to whomever He will. Through the Son, we begin to share in the knowledge of the Son; through the Son, we are brought into the exclusive relationship of mutual knowledge between Father and Son, and when we are introduced into the inner fellowship of God, we also come to know “these things.”

Such revelation, Jesus says, is only given to “babes.” Jesus Himself is such a “babe,” “gentle and humble in heart.” He humbles Himself like a little child before His Father, and in His eternal humbling, His eternal childishness, the Son knows the Father because the Father reveals Himself.

This is the childishness to which Jesus calls us too. If we want to share the Son’s knowledge of the Father, we have to be like Jesus, babes who are gentle and humble in heart. If we want to share in the things that the Father has handed over to the Son, we need to lower ourselves as the Son Himself does.

That is the attitude we should have as we come to this table. This is not a table for cringing and fear. It is not a table where we scrape like abject slaves. This is not a table for worms. But it is a table for babes, for little children of the heavenly Father, who are both humble before their Father and eagerly confident of his mercy.

Our humility gives us confidence. Jesus says in John that the Father has given Him to have life in Himself, and we learn in Matthew that He shares out that life with us. He has promised to share that life in different ways – through His word, through our fellowship in the Spirit with one another, in the water of baptism and at this table. If we want to share in the life of the Father and Son, we need to renounce all prideful attempts to find our own path into the Triune fellowship. Humbly trusting His promise, we seek Him where He promised to be found.

Here is where He promised to reveal Himself, in the breaking of bread. Here is the rest Jesus offers, here at this table. Come to Him, but come to Him as a hungry baby, as one who knows the Father only because the Son shows Him.