The Liturgy Explained. James W. Farwell

Body of Christ. In baptism, water is poured over the heads or bodies of initiates, and the rich ambiguity of water is key to the ritual. Water cleanses and waters drowns; water washes the earth clean and, in great amounts, destroys; water refreshes, and renews. The ambiguity of water is an appropriate symbol, then, for Christian initiation: those who enter into a life lived before God through Jesus Christ die to an old life and awaken to new life, true life, by God’s Word; they are refreshed and renewed and made clean not by their own doing, but by God whose radical love and forgiveness is freely offered to all. Being forgiven and reborn, they commence a life in which they promise to celebrate in gratitude the life they have been given; trust in God; be faithful members of the church that testifies to God’s grace by its mission and outreach to the world; care for the dignity of all human beings who are made in God’s image; and return again, with the help of God, whenever they fail to keep these promises.

      The Table, or Altar, is the place where the community of faith, baptized into this life of responsive trust, gratitude, and compassionate care for God’s world is strengthened daily to continue that work by the presence of the risen Lord Jesus, who commanded that his followers share this meal to remember him. At the same time, eating the sacred food, we become what we eat. (Remember Augustine’s teaching at the end of the last chapter.) Since the focus of this book is on the Eucharist, a ritual that culminates in this sacred eating, we will have much more to say on this in subsequent sections.