How can intimacy and awe coexist? It is the work of God alone. The Holy Spirit enables us to cry out, “Abba, Father!” and the same Spirit is the one who teaches us to hallow God’s name as we pray to Him. The Holy Spirit is, after all, a holy Spirit. He could no more lead us into irreverence than water can be dry.
This table is one more instance of how God bestows upon us a demeanor of intimacy and awe. This is a familial Table; we are here because we are sons and daughters. Behold, what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.
At the same time, this position of privilege and grace is not one to which we are oblivious. We know that God has made us kings and priests on the earth, and we do not dismiss this as a light or trivial thing. We know that we are approaching the God who dwells in inapproachable light. We know that we are holding that which cannot be grasped. We understand that we are pondering mysteries that cannot be understood.
Our privilege is precisely here. We know what we have because we know that in ourselves we cannot have it. We hold nothing in our own hands, cup or bread, that is not there as a sheer and overwhelming gift from our gracious and sovereign God. We hold nothing in our hands in our own name. In the holding, in the eating, in the drinking, we are named. What is that name that we bear? It is the name of Jesus Christ, the name that is above every name, the name at which every knee shall bow, whether in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth. In addition to this, every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Here, in this place, the tongues which make this confession do so, in part, because they are the same tongues which are used in this glorious eating and drinking. We do proclaim the Lord’s death by singing and praying, it is true. But we also proclaim the universal lordship of Jesus through tasting and swallowing.