Come to the Feast

Joseph Mangina (Revelation, 248) summarizes David Barr’s (Tales of the End) analysis of the parallels between Revelation 22 and the Didache‘s depiction of early Christian Eucharist: “both Rev. 22 and the Didache (a) allude to Jesus’s descent from David, (b) draw a sharp distinction  between those worthy to participate and outsiders, (c) refer to these outsiders as ‘dogs,’ (d) offer spiritual food and drink to the hearer, and (e) include the responses ‘Lord Jesus come!’ and “Amen!’” (fn 7).

Mangina himself adds: “If we read Revelation’s eucharistic language apart from its messianism, the temptation will be to see the Eucharist as a privatized meal, disconnected from Christ’s claim of rule over the nations – the ultimate in consumerist ‘fast food.’ The church thus understood will see no need to wash its robes in the blood of the Lamb. But if we read the messianism apart from the Eucharist, the temptation will be to view the church in instrumental terms, as a community that has little to offer the nations beyond its own, all-too-human goals and ideals.”

Instead, we need to recognize that the church is more than “a religious advocacy group or an NGO.” It is rather “the earthly community that drinks from the springs of the waters of life and that has the very tree of life planted in its midst.” Thus, “What the church finally has to offer the nations is God’s promise of life and community. That life and that communion are present in the church’s supper, an anticipation of the great supper of the Lamb on the last day.”