LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Concordia Lutheran Seminary

WILLIAMS: THE EUCHARIST IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 103
more indirect for the modern reader than for the original addressees.” 50 He
notes first, that the tent in 9:11 is referred to with the definite article—“the”
tent (h` skhnh,)—suggesting it to be “something familiar from their
experience.” 51 Furthermore, he notes that:
The fact that a modern theological term like ‘Eucharist’ must be imposed on
the epistle for the sake of clarity for the modern reader does not mean that the
author of Hebrews did not have a reflex ordering of his knowledge (i.e., a
theology) about Christ’s cultic body and blood. But this theology was in
terms of Old Testament realities rather than in terms of philosophical analysis
or of subsequent Christian thought. 52
Perhaps here Swetnam suggests an insight into the place of the Eucharist in
Hebrews which is even deeper than he intended. The secondary theological
enterprise of “philosophical analysis” and “dogmatic Christian thought”, as
valuable as they certainly are, will never be enough to draw out from the
Hebrews text the deep mysteries of what it may say and mean of the
Eucharist and of the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem. This comes when the
Hebrews text is proclaimed and heard as primary theology within the context
of the joyful gathering together, precisely where the epistle endlessly exhorts
one to be. Only then is the mystery of the Eucharist, revealed within the text,
yet opaquely hidden, seen there, and “made manifest”—only while it is
being “something familiar from their experience”.
Rev. Paul Williams is pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Kitchener, Ontario.
50 Swetnam, “Tent” 106.
51 Swetnam, “Tent” 106.
52 Swetnam, “Tent” 106.