Past, Present, Future (Essay)

A Communion Meditation

By Amirah David

Do this in remembrance of me.

I was recently shown a brand new perspective, thanks to Rick Booye - like seeing in color for the first time, not knowing it has always been there.  It comes from Ephesians 2:6 “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.”  Notice, this is stated in the past tense. This is a future past tense. God is eternal, so time means nothing to Him, but He knows it means a lot to us, and therefore tenses matter.  I’ve heard it said, it’s as if time is a river winding around a mountain and he is seated at the pinnacle of that mountain and able to see the whole river.  So because you are Christ’s - there is, right now, a very real sense in which you are already with Christ in heaven,  - ALREADY with Christ, cheering the you now on, both of you together saying, “Just a little longer! You’ve got this! He has you! It really is all going to be ok!”

Or as JRR Tolkien wrote, “everything sad will come untrue.”  I don’t know about you, but this idea woke something up in me.  I could suddenly see the mountains where there had only been fog, and caught a tiny glimpse of God’s view from the top.  From imagining my actual self, already there with Christ, but in a different part of time, or rather, non-time, I had the experience of settling.  Recently I’ve had bigger rapids, and I for a time could no longer see ahead - have you ever felt like that?  But with this new vision, Jesus calmed the waters enough to see the way again and start to relax back into his boat and let him take over again as the only master captain.  This image of already - felt like true assurance.  Rest.  A kind of good weight in the belly. A buoyancy in the thick sludge of suffering.  

Is it possible to remember something from the future?  Well, God is actually inviting us to do just that.  Of course He would because His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  So, with communion, not only are we remembering how God gave his Son to us, how his Son gave his human body and his divine life for us to have the true life He intended for us, as our true selves He created in his image, in unbroken communion with Him, as He made us to thrive within, but without sin.  AND, with communion we also get to remember the sure future that starts NOW, but also waits patiently for us if we receive in this ultimate selfless gift.  We eat and drink to remember that the only true life from the source of life itself, now lives inside us.  AND, we get to remember that we are also in Him, inside heaven, already seated with Him in glory, as co-heirs to the throne of the universe.  

What?  Maybe this is legitimately mindboggling and even bizarre to imagine.  But my 6 year old self (and maybe your little kid self), who put on princess dresses and danced freely in the streets would absolutely understand that she belongs as the King’s daughter.  Not from ego or pride, but from gratitude and a matter-of-fact understanding of her worth.  We are beyond precious to Him.  The heart-aching body-expanding love we feel for babies and children perhaps is the only way we ever come remotely close to understanding His love for us.  Perhaps this is one reason why he calls us to be like children to enter the kingdom of heaven.  They can accept love.  Worth.  And even time-bending realities like already living in the kingdom of heaven with their good King and Father.  Their bridegroom.  We practice weddings when we are small.  We know we are meant to be loved like this - because we already are - but must remember.

In the new age world we are told that this life is for waking up to the reality that we are inherently divine in nature but have forgotten.  But the God of the Bible tells us, all we have to wake up to is the fact that we are already LOVED BY the only TRUE GOD.  Not that we ARE God (that would be the original lie in the garden that made the whole thing fall).  But restoration of our true nature and of the whole world, comes through God’s love for us.  

So, let us take this bread and this wine (juice) all the way in, in remembrance of the past miracle of the God of the universe becoming a tiny human and dying a horrible death to give our spirit His life, AND in remembrance of the future miracle that we are already living that eternal life in the love that saved us.  And that somehow it will all be better for having been broken.

Lord, thank you for this living hope.  For the fact that we have a living God who exists in the past, present and the future, all at once and in whom we live and move and have our being.  From whom we cannot hide.  And in whose love we are restored.  Help us to remember your cross 2000 years ago, our future with you, and keep our eyes on you always in this present.  

In Jesus name, 

Amen