Eucharistic meditation, Fourth Sunday of Lent

Eucharist has always been the center of the worship of the people of God. Abel worshiped Yahweh at an altar, which is to say, a table, and so did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all Israel . That continued into the new covenant, where the Lord’s Supper instituted by Jesus became the central act of Christian liturgy. Enjoying a fellowship meal with God has always been the climax of worship.

Yet, Christians have had different experiences of this table, and different understanding of what is going on here. Christians have had similar practices, but the liturgical piety that shaped that practice has differed from age to age.

For many, the table has been a re-enactment of the events of Jesus’ death. In fact, for many, the entire liturgy has been seen as a reenactment of the life of Jesus. The entrance has been seen as symbolic of the incarnation; various gestures and movements have been seen as recapitulations of actions of Jesus; and the Supper has been viewed as a re-presentation of the death of Jesus.

That is not the biblical view of this table. According to Scripture, our worship is not a re-enactment of the death of Jesus. Instead, our worship is essentially a participation in the age to come, a public declaration that in Christ all things are made new, a realization of the church as the community of the future.

Our worship is essentially about eschatology. It’s all about declaring that the resurrection that is future has already happened, that God’s enthronement and man’s, which is future, has already happened, that the new heavens and new earth, which are future, have already appeared.

Early Christians often spoke of the Lord’s Day as the “eighth day” as well as the “first day” of the week. As the “first day,” the Lord’s day is the beginning of a week, part of the cycle of days and weeks that make up the time of creation. But they also said that the Lord’s day is the eighth day, a day beyond the week, beyond the cycle of days and weeks that make up our history. As the eighth day, it anticipates the endless day of the kingdom, and it declares that this endless day of the future has already taken root in the present.