Eucharistic Meditation

Luke 22:29-30: Jesus said to His disciples during the Last Supper, Just as My Father granted Me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Last Thursday was Ascension Day. Forty days after Easter, Jesus took His disciples outside Jerusalem, commanded them to stay in Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Spirit, instructed them then to move out to make disciples of the Gentiles, and then was taken from them into a cloud. From that day, Jesus has been enthroned in heaven at the right hand of His Father, having been made head over all things.

The key point of Ascension is not that the Son of God has begun to rule. The Son of God has, with the Father and Spirit, ruled all things since the beginning of things. The new thing that happened at the Ascension of Jesus is that the Incarnate Son begins to rule. There is a human being, a man, on the throne at the right hand of the Father, far above all authority; by the ascension, Jesus has fulfilled the original Adamic commission to rule the earth.

And we are in Him. Paul says that just as Jesus is seated in heavenly places, so also in Him we are seated in heavenly places. We shouldn’t think that someday in the postmillennial future, Christians will begin to rule. We should instead realize that we rule now. This is a strange kind of rule, a rule that no one else acknowledges, a rule that is not based on power or apparent influence, a rule that can appear to have very little effect on the world around us. But the gospel says that it’s true, and we have to live in terms of what God says is the case and not in terms of what we can see is true.

And that is part of the glory of this table. Calvin raised the question of how we can feed on Christ when He’s in heaven and we’re on earth, and one of his answers was that the Spirit catches us up to heaven to be with Christ. This is no earthly table; this is a heavenly table, where we sit to eat and drink in the kingdom of God.
But sitting is also the posture of rule, the posture of kings, the posture of judges. Because of Jesus’ ascension, this is a table for kings and queens, princes and princesses. This is a table for those who have, in Christ, ascended to heavenly places and entered the heavenly tabernacle. Because of Jesus’ ascension, we have been given a kingdom, the right to eat and drink and the authority to judge the 12 tribes of Israel.