The Word is prior to the world. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This means that everything about that Word was prior to everything in the world.
The world does not constitute reality; rather, the world reflects reality. Unlike the materialistic scientist, we do not look to the world to find out what is real. We look to the Word, and there we find what is real in the world, and what is transitory.
The Word is the image of the Father. The Word is the perfect metaphor for the Father. The Word is ultimate symbol. This means that the symbol created the world. The world is not a real ocean, with symbols coming off the top, like so much ocean spray. Rather, the world in its entirety, and all that it contains, is existent because of the Word.
We see the same thing as God is recreating the world, as He is doing in us, as He is doing through His proclaimed gospel, and as He is doing through His covenant meal here. The Word is prior. The Word is first. The Word is ultimate.
Why should we find it strange that God is summoning all the nations through the folly of preaching, through the folly of the Word. That is how He summoned the light, and the sun, and the moon, and that grass of the field. This is how God summons everything, and it does not matter than nothing is there before the Word. That is how it must be, so that the Word might have the supremacy.
The Word shapes and constitutes. The Word declares that you are one loaf, and the Word enables you to discern the body of the Lord in one another. The Word enables you to do this as you eat bread and drink wine. Is there magic in the bread and wine? Of course not. Is there power in the Word? Of course.