Eucharistic meditation, Pentecost

Psalm 78:40-42: �How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert. And again and again they tempted God, and pained the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember His power, the day when He redeemed them from the adversary.�E Isaiah 63:10: �But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit.�E

This Supper is a Trinitarian event. Here at this table, the Father who is kind to His children offers us the living Bread of His Son, and He does that through the Spirit. Jesus has ascended into heaven, and is no longer with us in the flesh. But He is with us, both here at this table, and elsewhere, through the power of the Spirit, as the Lord who is Spirit. We feed on Christ at this table only because of the work of the Spirit, who unites things distant from each other. We feed on Christ at this table only because of Pentecost. The Supper is a thoroughly Pentecostal event.

Throughout history, churches have gone off the rails in Eucharistic theology and practice when they forget that this is a Trinitarian feast, that the Supper has a Trinitarian �structure.�E Above all, there are many churches that have ignored the Spirit�s work at this table, and that includes Reformed churches. This is surprising, since Calvin�s teaching on the Supper depended on his understanding of the work of the Spirit.

This table is also training, part of the Spirit�s discipline of the church. At this meal, we receive the Spirit, and at this meal we also learn over and over again what it means to keep in step with the Spirit. In Psalm 78 and Isaiah 63, we learn that Israel grieved the Lord, and specifically the Spirit, in the wilderness. Both of these passages say that Israel grieved the Spirit by rebelling against him. When we look back at Numbers, and also at Paul�s interpretation of these events in 1 Corinthians 10, the rebellion took the form of grumbling, ingratitude. We grieve the Spirit when we are unthankful. This is something we should take deeply to heart: The Spirit is the source of all life, health, joy, union, love �Eeverything that makes human life truly human. But we can lose it all, and our lives can fall apart into major or minor catastrophes, if we are ungrateful. But this table is a Eucharistic table, where each week the Spirit joins us in thanksgiving for all that God does, and where we are constantly trained to live Eucharistically throughout our lives. The Eucharist of this table should become the tone of life in general, so that we do not grieve the Spirit by our grumbling.

Israel grieved the Spirit by their grumbling because of their forgetfulness, particularly their forgetfulness of God�s great redemption from Egypt. This too we should take to heart; we can grieve the Spirit of life by letting things slip our minds, by forgetting all God�s benefits to us. But this meal is given as a help, because here at this table each week the Spirit joins us to commemorate the death of Jesus and His resurrection for us.

We grieve the Spirit by grumbling; we grieve the Spirit by forgetting. But the Lord has given us help, the help of this table, where in the Spirit we give thanks and where in the Spirit we memorialize Christ until He comes.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, May 15, 2005 at 08:24 AM

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