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Eucharistic Meditation for Fourth Sunday in Advent:
I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon today the error that some Christians have fallen into of resting the whole of our redemption on the incarnation itself. They treat Christmas as if it were detachable from the life of Jesus, from Good Friday, from Easter, from Ascension, from Pentecost. Scripture does not allow that: It is through the WORD and WORK of the incarnate Son that we are saved; and it is through the word and work of the INCARNATE SON that we are saved. God comes to dwell in humanity in the incarnation, but God comes to dwell in the church as a whole at Pentecost.
There is a similar problem with some understandings of the Lord's Supper. Some through the history of the church have understood the Lord's Supper on the analogy of the incarnation. Just as God the Son became man in Jesus, so the incarnate Son makes Himself available to us in the Supper as bread. The bread we break is the Son incarnate as food, the cup we drink is the Son insanguinated as wine.
Here too we must recall that the work of Jesus is a whole, and comes to a climax in the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. The Supper is a mystery but it is not the mystery of the Son of God incarnating Himself again as food. It is rather the mystery of the Spirit giving the Son of God to us as food. Through eating and drinking this bread and this wine, we are united to Christ more strongly, Christ comes to dwell in us more fully, but all this takes place IN AND THROUGH THE SPIRIT.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, December 21, 2003 at 03:29 AM
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