Servant yet Master; right hand of Power; life-giving body and blood

…in the Master’s way he almost shakes off being thought of in a servant’s rank; yet he honors this because of the human. “For I am,” he says, “in your midst as the one who serves.” So even if he has come down among servants, he is still himself the one reclining — as Master, and served by all creation as God.

So Christ said to them — clearly to the chief priests of the Jews who were asking: “If you are the Christ, tell us. If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I ask, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” If the Son of Man sits at the right hand of God’s power, how is Christ not God — shining in the highest seats and sharing the Father’s throne? For a created nature does not sit with the God who is so by nature at all; yet the Son of Man does sit with him. So he is God by economic union, the Word born from God having become flesh.

That Christ is life and life-giving. From the letter to the Corinthians: “I speak as to the wise; judge what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless — is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break — is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we the many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.” Human flesh, as far as its own nature goes, would not be life-giving, nor would human blood if it were common and by itself; but Christ’s body and precious blood give life — and being able to give life belongs to God alone…