PART 4: Manna, Community and the Eucharist (Lord's Supper/Communion)
From the study in PART 1, we see that manna affirmed Israel’s calling
and identity. Its provision affirmed Israel as a people whom God had redeemed
as His own and whose needs He would provide as a Father. Like the journeys of
the patriarchs and later exiles, Israel’s journey through the wilderness was a
way by which God renewed the people’s awareness of His election and confirmed
their faith as a nation. Furthermore, manna not only nourished individuals but
also cultivated concern for the nourishment of one’s neighbours in the context
of food sharing. Israel’s wilderness was a journey by which the social nature
and moral responsibility of God’s people unfolded.
Christ
commanded that we should eat bread and drink the cup (Lk 22:14-20, 1 Cor
11:23-26) in eucharistic worship, by which we become one Body. Manna brings us to consider bread in the liturgy of the Church as the
often-overlooked means of forming the Body of Christ.
First, the impressions of God’s
faithfulness to His people found in manna were deepened in Christ’s Last
Supper. The message of manna echoed by the Jewish Passover commemorated God’s deliverance
of Israel from Egyptian captivity. The Last Supper, on the other hand, is to be
eaten in eucharistic worship not only to commemorate. It also actualises the past events of Christ’s deliverance of His people
from sin’s captivity so that the power of Christ’s death and resurrection may
be availed in the present while the Church looks forward to the future
eschaton.[1] If manna was to form Israel into a
son who fears and obeys God, trusts in His deliverance during troubled times and
is confident of its privileges of sonship, even more so should the Eucharist
for the Church.
Secondly, the manna-mediated communion
between God and Israel is far more intimate in the Eucharist. The Eucharist affords
not only communion but ultimately, a union between Christ and the Church. If
Israel matured by God’s companionship evidenced by manna, even more so should the
Church mature by the sensual enactment of the final consummation of this
divine-human union (cf. Rev 19:5-10).
Finally, manna unified and
reconfigured the communal identity of Israel which was rooted in sharing God’s
divine nourishment. Surely then, the Eucharist is important because it shapes a
community which finds its orientation in sharing the nourishment of bread and
wine. Consequently, the unified Church may share effectively in the priesthood
of Christ from which different ministries flow and thus, manifest the invisible
High Priest Himself to the world.[2]
[1] See Chan, Liturgical Theology, p.79.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chan,
Simon. Liturgical Theology: The Church as
Worshiping Community. Downers Grove,
Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2006.
Crichton,
J. D. “A Theology of Worship” in A Study
of Liturgy, rev. ed., ed. Cheslyn Jones et al. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1992.
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