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Hey Rick,

I really appreciated your below thoughts on this. I am grateful that our friendship continues to challenge and sharpen my walk with the Lord. Since your description of the Eucharistic faith is central to Christian life as you understand it, I will try to express my differing views on this topic--specifically on the following comments you made:

"It is the Eucharist itself that is at the heart of this divine event. Through the Eucharist we unite ourselves to Christ. It is by partaking in his very body and blood that we become one with Him, and as we are united with him, we are united to his perfect sacrifice to the Father. We are united to his death, and united to his resurrection. We receive new life through unity with his everlasting life. Unless we eat his body and drink his blood, there is no life in him."

Question, if the Eucharist is the means by which Christ imparts his life, and by which we are united to Christ, and we do this once a week, then what do we do if we want to fellowship with Christ at other times? This is a basic question about the manner we are to daily relate to Christ, and evidently for Catholics, (or at least Scott Hahn as I understand him), this is fundamentally based on an interpretation Luke's account of the Lord's Supper. In the lecture cd that Chris gave me, Hahn states that the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God actually comes during the Eucharist, for Christ says "I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God." And then a couple verses later, as Hahn points out, Christ proceeds to eat and drink the consecrated body and blood, thus justifying Hahn's statement that (paraphrasing) "wherever the King is there is the Kingdom, and wherever the Eucharist is there is the King."


Rick, if you agree with Hahn, then the important question is whether the Kingdom of God was indeed fulfilled at that very supper, and therefore whether it is through the Eucharist that we are united to Christ. This is a question of how Christ enters into his people, as, in speaking of the Eucharist, you say "As the groom approaches his bride and enters her, giving her the seed of life, Christ the groom approaches me and enters me, giving the seed of life". I don't follow how Christ has done this through the Eucharist, and would like to better understand your position on this. For now, I'll offer some passages have helped me understand this in a different way:

John 8:37-39 (NASB): Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Certainly for me to be part of any community in fellowship with the Lord, I would wish that rivers of living water flow from within me, and the above verses state I must receive the Spirit following Christ's glorification. As Christ promises in John 15:16-17: "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you." Indeed, as it says "The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life giving spirit." (I Cor 15:45). To eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood and thereby receive life, we are indwelt by Christ's life-giving Spirit. "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." John 6:63.

Thus, as I read it, when Christ promises the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God at the last supper, this seems to refer to the way he will put his seed, his life giving spirit, into those that believe. I don't know how this could be done at the Lord's Supper, for as I understand it he had not yet been glorified (and perhaps (??) why he tells Mary, after the crucifixion "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" John 20:17). Also, I'm confused by the way Hahn specifically references the Lord's supper verses in Luke, but since I don't know your take on that, we can discuss it later.

Ultimately I think, Christ fulfills the Kingdom when he gives his spirit: "So Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them "Receive the Holy Spirit." (John 20:21-22) This is what I believe he was referring to during the Lord's Supper.

Therefore, we continually partake of Christ through the Spirit who lives within us. Gathering together weekly and remembering Christ through the physical act of the Eucharist is indeed a important expression of our communal fellowship with God. However, rivers of living water running from within us through Christ's Spirit is, I think, our source of community with God, with each other, and is the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. The King is certainly where his people gather to take the Eucharist, but more importantly I think, the King is where his Spirit is, and his Spirit is in us.

Reading the above sounds more jumbled and confused than it does in my head, but I hope we talk more about this; I learn more from reading your thoughts than I do from writing my own. Hope all is well at the Jabez House,

Matt