VC, I think you are getting into some very interesting concepts here. If we go back to Eden we see man being compelled by Satan to disobey God to consume the apple out of a core desire to be like God. Apart from the sin of trusting a complete stranger (the serpent) over the natural friendship owed God for creating them and God’s deserving of belief the fundamental transgression is one of envy, pride and desire to posses beyond the limit of one’s freely GIVEN good created nature. I really think we need to see the Eucharist in the concept of an antidote, or medicine; a salvific fruit from the Tree of Life (the cross where God hangs Himself as a fruit to be taken). This view of Eucharist removes the repulsion to any form of cannibalism. In fact, those that entertain the idea of cannibalism are working DIRECTLY to Satan’s agenda who rather than playing the old game of enticing us to eat the forbidden fruit is swapping the lie around. Satan is now trying to convince us that the salvific fruit is poison and a new forbidden fruit (cannibalism) so we don’t eat it at the very same time we are all dieing from his original lie!!! Let me demonstrate my view of Eucharist in a scripturally integrative way.
In essence God, through the Eucharist is giving a new invitation with a positive commandment (i.e. “eat so you may live”) that results in an award of life rather than a negative commandment (i.e. “do not eat from the forbidden fruit least you die”). Both approaches are based on personal choices and consistent with our created nature of free choice and our nature of hunger. I see all aspects of our human existence (need, hunger, love, desire for intimacy, growth, awe of the scale of the cosmos) as a metaphorical and self evident lesson that compels us to seek a higher nature that is available to us only through Christian teaching and the credible hope of God’s favor. In Eucharist, a new Divine invitation to “eat my body and drink my blood” replaces an old imperative commandment of avoidance of he forbidden fruit. Eucharist itself is completely integrative with an ancient old covenant based on Law (that all builds on the same principals we originally see in Eden’s only commandment) AND with the new covenant that based on trust and acceptance of Love.
Clearly, we see in the Eucharist and the entirety of the scriptural message that God comes as our rescuer and gives us a new Divine Invitation:
'Come! Extend your hand and choose your portion as your forefathers did in Eden. But this time I open access to The Tree of Life and now invite you to not withhold your hand from the forbidden fruit but to instead take freely from the fruit of the Tree of Life!. Take care to not be deceived a second time by the serpent - he wants you as his children and to make you his thralls. But as I rescued the Jews from slavery and delivered them to the promised land I will rescue you from slavery to sin and bring you to the promised land of my Kingdom. Your parents Adam and Even trusted the serpent over me. You children of Adam and Eve listen to me this 2nd time so you may live. The serpent is NOT your friend. He does not want you to eat of this salvific fruit - why should you listen to him after you have all experienced such sorrow, death and sadness? The serpent offers you nothing and I offer you restoration to My friendship and life eternal. Yet he uses false teachers and ministers of deceit to compel you from the Truth that this salvific fruit will restore you. In Eden ther serpent compelled your parents to believe that equality with God was a thing to be grasped at; and so through disobedience, as I warned, your inherited a nature that became poisoned and subject to death. But shall I deem it just to let all their children suffer for the transgressions of their parents? No! I will give you new parents and adopt you as My children! Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son for my sake. But I withheld his hand and replaced his offered sacrifice of faith with my only Son - Jesus. Can you not now through Abraham’s willing grief in the notion of losing his son empathize with my grief in sacrificing my only son Jesus? From My Son’s sacrifice is planted the seed of life by which The Tree of Life becomes available to you; and it bears much fruit! So, come again now and grasp as your parents first did. But this time do so through my invitation to reach for friendship with you God. For I make myself your Father! See, I come to you as real food and real drink so that you may ascertain that I am suitable and good for you to eat and drink. Consume Me. Bring Me into you to offset the transgression your parents did with consuming the forbidden fruit. Do not listen to the serpent a 2nd time to reject what I say. Come, trust me, and eat from the Divine Fruit born of my Son’s obedience and Love for Me and you. If you eat this Divine Salvific Fruit from the Tree of Life it will heal you; and will restore you to friendship and transform you into My very nature. Do you not still desire to be like Me?! I give what the serpent could not give through a lie. So withhold not your hand then for My Nature is much greater that what I originally created in you and will restore you to eternal life. But you must first trust Me and let mistrust dies so I may live in you. My friendship is your antidote and My nature brings you to a new and better Life. I have ransomed you out of the slavery of sin and will adopt you as My very children. Come and eat!’
Thus in the imagery of Eden we have no semantic of cannibalism but rather a divine mystical experience that transcends mere human semantics. This imagery reachs from earth to heaven in the same manner a tree grows from earth toward the heavens. The Tree of Life produces fruit that arises from the cooperation of creation with God’s natural laws and God working cooperatively through human estate (Jesus and the saints) and whose soil is tilled by man (our sacrificial works in the flood of God’s loving grace). At the end of the day all we have to do is pick the fruit and eat it and not pay ear to Satan teling us to ‘ignore our hunger because God is lieing to us’. God makes it very easy for us since this time since Satan has nothing to offer us to escape death; and all we have to do is satisfy or spiritual hunger by eating.
James
