In our home church, we walk up to the front and receive communion by tincture—ripping a chunk of soft white bread off the loaf ("this is the body") and dipping it in a chalice of fragrant red wine ("this is the blood"). Without exception, as I dally in the line, waiting, slowly walking forward, I tear up. Because here, symbolically and mysteriously, is the centre of the universe.
Jesus.
Through whom and for whom all things were created—including the grain from which we bake bread and the grapes from which we press wine.
Jesus.
In whom all things hold together—make sense,have meaning—despite the horrors of bones breaking and blood drawn from flesh by the torturer's instruments.
Jesus.
By whose death and resurrection God "reconciles to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."
The story of God's great deeds—creation of all things; judgment of vicious human rebellion; redemption of all things—told in the Bible is the context within which we at Comment understand and approach everything. In this issue, we have asked our contributors to recount the episodes of that story, and we publish an editorial manifesto, broadcasting our most deeply-held convictions on the origin, coherence and purpose of existence.
The story is true, and has consequences. Consequences for how we live, consequences for how we understand the lives of our neighbours. See these illustrated in the essays—literary and photographic—that surround our manifesto and the central thread of creation-wonder, fall-heartbreak, redemption-hope.
Come and explore with us. But however wide our wanderings take us, they centre still on the bread, the wine: the Christ.
Gideon Strauss
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