WOWAW 29: ‘The Eucharist … puts us in our place’
This week’s Words Of Wisdom About Worship:
The Eucharist is the definitive action practiced in the Christian community that keeps Jesus Christ before us as the Savior of the world and our Savior, and ourselves as sinners in need of being saved. The Eucharist is the sacramental act that pulls us into actual material participation with Christ (eating and drinking bread and wine) as he gives his very life “for us and for our salvation” (Nicene Creed). Without the Eucharist as focal practice, it is very easy to drift off into imagining Jesus as our Great Example whom we will imitate, or our Great Teacher from whom we will learn, or our Great Hero by whom we will be inspired. And without the Eucharist it is very easy to drift off into a spirituality that is dominated by ideas about Jesus instead of receiving life from Jesus. The Eucharist says a plain ‘no’ to all that. The Eucharist puts Jesus in his place: dying on the cross and giving us that sacrificed life. And it puts us in our place: opening our hands and receiving the remission of our sins, which is our salvation.
- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, p. 203
* Listen to a reading of this quote
by Howard Vanderwell
Earlier: WOWAW 28
Posted by Nathan Bierma on 01/24 at 03:38 PM
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