Remember and confess. . .

It is curious that in the Proclamation of Christ within Divine Service 1 and 2, we are called to remember and confess things that are all in the past save one -- His coming again.  Since we use both Divine Service 1 and 2 often, these words have become common to my ears and to the ears of my people.  Yet, they are not common words at all.

 

Proclamation of Christ

P As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

C Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

 

P O Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, in giving us Your body and blood to eat and to drink, You lead us to remember and confess Your holy cross and passion, Your blessed death, Your rest in the tomb, Your resurrection from the dead, Your ascension into heaven, and Your coming for the final judgment. So remember us in Your kingdom and teach us to pray: [The Our Father]

It is as if we the Second Coming is being referenced in the past tense -- as an event that has already taken place -- just as everything else in that section has. This is not some confused statement nor is it an attempt to include some rather strange doctrine of our Lord's return in glory as King and Judge of all.  It is instead the recognition that within the Divine Service the people of God and their Pastor stand at the very juncture of time and eternity --  the mystical place of already but not yet for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom without end.  Perhaps this is the better reason to call the Eucharist the Last Supper.  For it is that transcendent meal in which we enjoy a foretaste now but the fullness at the ripe moment which God Himself has appointed.

 

Within the seed is the tree.  The seed is already the tree but not yet its fullness.  So it is with the Nuptial Feast of the Lamb.  What shall be forever hidden in the here and now in the taste of the flesh of Christ in bread and of the blood of Christ in wine.   Jesus Christ the same “yesterday, today and forever” so Scripture and the Church proclaims.  This is the content of the living tradition passed to us and it is the living faith we pass on.  The words become sacramental forms that bestow the fruits of the past and the promise of the future in one eating and drinking.

What we say of the truth is that it is rooted in history and event to bestow eternally the fruits of that work and not simply in the present but also in the age to come.  Of course, what God is manifesting now in time can only be seen by faith yet, by faith, we behold the mystery of the ages now.  It is this that we confess -- not simply the events but nothing less than those events of His saving work and the eternal that is delivered to us within this moment of time. 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev 1:8)  He is the end of all things as well as the beginning.  He is not simply the Crucified who is present according to His promise but also the Risen and Glorious Lord.  We taste and see the goodness of the Lord by remembering and proclaiming and receiving the life-giving fruits of that event once in time here in this moment and in this communion receive the foretaste of the future and eternal.  Honestly, can it get any better than that?