Eucharistic meditation

Ephesians 2:13-14: But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.

Why can’t we all just get along? Why can’t everyone just sit down at the same table and be friendly? We have been so deeply shaped by the gospel, and by the bastard gospel of toleration, that we can’t understand why uniting the human race is such a big deal.

It is a big deal. As Pastor Sumpter has reminded us this morning, soteriology is ecclesiology. The salvation of humanity involves the formation of one new man, a new humanity in the midst of the old, one body out of two.

Jesus came to reconcile sinners to His Father, of course. Through Jesus, Gentiles who were once far off have been brought near; the alienated have been reconciled; the excluded have been included; strangers have become friends of God. Because Jesus has shed His blood, He is “our peace,” the one who brings peace between God and man.

But Paul’s emphasis is elsewhere. Jesus is our peace not only because He has brought peace with God but because He has brought peace between Jew and Gentile, between race and race, class and class, tribe and warring tribe. Human unity was so difficult to achieve that God the Son had to come into the world to achieve it. We couldn’t do it on our own. But human unity was so important to God that He did come to do it.

We shouldn’t ignore what Paul says about how God achieved this. Ephesians 2 is full of temple and sacrificial imagery, particularly toward the end. When Paul says that Jesus is “our peace,” he means that Jesus is our “peace offering.” He achieves this unity by offering Himself on the cross. As Paul says, we have been brought near “through His blood.”

This table is our peace offering, because at this table we commemorate and renew the barrier-busting, unifying death of Jesus. We eat the peace offering together as an effective sign of our peace with one another; together we drink the blood that brought us near. It is a weekly expression of our union together in Christ.

It is also a weekly reminder of the price of unity, and of the difficult work of achieving and maintaining unity. We think it’s nothing for us to sit at this one table as the one body. God knows differently. He knows what it cost to bring us near to one another. He knows what it took to get us to sit next to one another, share one loaf and drink from one cup. He knows it took the blood of the Son of God.