Eucharistic meditation

Genesis 1:1:9-11: Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.

The exodus is a creation event. Yahweh the Creator shakes heaven, earth, and the seas under the earth. He shakes until one world topples so He can begin a new one. He repeats the third day of creation, dividing the sea so that dry land appears, gathering the sea into one place to drown Pharaoh.

In the original creation week, the division of the waters and gathering of the sea is not the only work of the third day.

On the third day of creation week, Yahweh also calls on the earth to produce grass yielding seed and trees yielding fruit. The third day is when the earth becomes fruitful with grain and fruit, which is to say, wheat and grapes, which is to say, bread and wine.

There is a planting in the exodus story too. Israel passes through the sea on dry land. They are the wheat and the vine, the bread and the wine, the fruit that the earth produces with the word of the Lord. And in the Song of Moses, Israel sings of another planting still to come. As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, the Song collapses the exodus and the conquest. It’s as if Israel passes through the waters and immediately enters the land, scattering the Canaanites before them. It’s as if they cross the waters and immediately are at the mountain of Yahweh’s inheritance, His dwelling, the sanctuary His hands establish.

Israel is planted at that sanctuary. Yahweh’s sanctuary is His garden, and His plants are His people. That means us as well as Israel. Jesus is the Holy One, our Holy Place, God’s dwelling. In Christ, we are planted in the Father’s house. We not only receive the bread and wine of the third day, but we are the bread and wine, springing up from Jesus’ resurrection on the third day. We are what we eat, and as we eat and drink here we become the food and the intoxicating wine of joy for the world.