Eucharistic Meditation, May 9

Psalm 104:14-15

Wine, Scripture says, is one of God?s great gifts to man. Yahweh is the true God of the vine, the true Dionysus. And wine is one of the great gifts of the New Covenant. One of the signs of Israel?s immaturity in the OT was the prohibition of drinking wine in the presence of God: ?Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you may not die.?E Now, we drink wine every week in the presence of God.

As Jesus said, the Supper is a ritual memorial of His death: His body was given for us, torn for us, killed for us, and the blood flowed from it. Atoning blood comes only because His body was torn. Similarly, in the rite of communion, wine is given after the breaking of bread. First the body is broken; the blood is poured out. First the bread broken; then the wine.

I said in the exhortation that a prophet is someone with a developed sense of plot, and the rite of the Supper displays the essential contours of the plot, and thereby trains us as prophets, full of prophetic insight and prophetic hope. The Supper displays the fact that the joy of wine only comes after the breaking of the loaf. And the Supper assures us that the breaking of the bread will be followed by the wine of gladness.