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Matthew 1:1: The Book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
As we saw in the sermon this morning, when the Son of God took on human flesh, he took on the human condition in its totality. He took on ancestors and a history, and the ancestors were not always very honorable ones. He lived in a specific location and entered a specific family. He did all this so that He could begin history again, with a new Genesis.
Jesus has been exalted into heaven, but in a sense, He remains in humiliation. For now Jesus is not present with us in the flesh. He is present with us through the Spirit. And He is present with us through signs, through Word and Sacrament. The Son's relation to these Eucharistic elements is the same as His relation to His human flesh. The bread is not a "new incarnation" of the Son of God, and He is not "there" in the bread the way He was "there" as Jesus. Yet, Jesus is here, and He communicates Himself to us through these signs. The one who subjected Himself to all the constraints of human existence now subjects Himself to the constraints of bread and wine.
This in-signification, like the original in-carnation, is done for us. The Father sent the Son through the Spirit to be incarnate in the womb of Mary, as son of David and son of Abraham, to fulfill all that God had promised to Abraham and David. Every week, the Father sends the Son in the power of the Spirit to be with us, and to feed Himself to us, through bread and wine. For He was and remains the bread that came down from heaven, that we might have life.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, November 27, 2005 at 08:19 AM
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