Children of the Wedding Feast
Some more thoughts on “bearing the marks” of Jesus as mentioned here.
Communion in the liturgy corresponds to Atonement. The saints carry the creation before the throne of God as mediators (Tabernacles). Then, after the doxology, we ride out into the world as “chariots” carrying the decree from the emperor (notice this pattern in Revelation 18-19).
So, if we follow the biblical pattern for liturgy, we are re-enacting every week what Christ accomplished in the AD30-70 “wilderness to Canaan” period. This is exactly where Israel failed in the book of Judges. It was a Levitical failure. God raised up judges to preserve His people from total destruction, but it began with the priesthood losing the plot as mediators, a failure of both judgment (manward and worship (Godward).
A pinch of bread and a thimble of cordial while breast-beating in silence is a Levitical failure. Communion is a celebration. The time for breast-beating is the confession at the beginning of the service. You wash before you come to the table.
: ( Confession - Christ crucified – Passover – Red Sea (we are “passed over”) Judgment
: ) Communion - boasting in Christ crucified – Atonement – Jordan (we “pass through”) Worship
At Communion, the “stigmata” of Christ are rewritten in us as living epistles, tablets of flesh, an invitation to Tabernacles. The pattern is renewed in the mediators, and we ride into the world with a renewed Covenant in a new week, as the Word to the world.
Well, that’s the plan. In the west, we seem to be at the mercy of the Philistines. This liturgical pattern often has children at this last step as the horses and chariots. It concerns the next generation. (Elisha’s bears appear at this step to deal with the “children” of Jezebel!) After Communion, we are the renewed children of the Table, offspring of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
