One thing that I’ve been thinking of is how attachment psychology relates to God’s dealings with us.  Particularly attachment in infants.  A lot of study on child psychology and development has taken place in recent years, leading to a resurgence in practices like co-sleeping, baby wearing, and even breast feeding.  One article I came across has a good overview of how parental practice affects attachment in infants and parents.

It’s interesting.  When a mother nurses her infant, the hormone oxytocin is produced both in the mother and the infant from the close physical contact.  Oxytocin is directly associated with attachment and bonding between people, whether between spouses or between a mother and her child.  Not only does the infant produce oxytocin, but it obtains a “double dose,” as it were through its mother’s milk.  Nursing is God’s designed way of bringing a mother and her infant into close fellowship, attaching them to one another, and providing a physiological foundation for the mother to joyfully and effectively raise her child.  This stage of attachment is particularly important for the healthy development of an infant.  You can’t wait a few years to bond and hope for the same effect.  An infant who does not attach may suffer severe consequences throughout life, well into adulthood.

It’s an amazing thing, God’s great design.  But the purpose of my posting this isn’t to argue the benefits of breast-feeding infants.  There are plenty of good articles that do that by much more qualified people.  I’m posting this to dig a little deeper.  Like so many aspects of humanity, nursing does not stand alone, and it’s not merely utilitarian.  A psychologist may be able to describe what is happening physiologically, but he cannot tell you why it is so in a deeper sense than that of natural cause and effect.

It’s no accident that feeding a child is directly associated with attachment in the design of this universe.  The one who feeds attaches.  In fact, God uses the imagery of nursing children and other images of feeding to describe  his love for his chosen people.  The passage comes first to mind is Isaiah 66:10-13.

“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,
all you who love her;
rejoice with her in joy,
all you who mourn over her;
that you may nurse and be satisfied
from her consoling breast;
that you may drink deeply with delight
from her glorious abundance.”

For thus says the LORD:
“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,
and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip,
and bounced upon her knees.
As one whom his mother comforts,
so I will comfort you;
you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

God promises his people that in the day that he extends peace to Jerusalem, he will feed them.  And not merely feed them, but nurse them.  They will be nourished and comforted.  And when did this happen?  When did God give Jerusalem peace, that his people might rejoice and be fed by her?

Of course, the final peace of the true Jerusalem, the Church, is found in Christ.  It’s interesting to note that it is specifically Jerusalem who feeds us in the prophecy.  Also striking is the imagery of Jerusalem’s citizens as nursing babes, all of them.  While it is Jerusalem who feeds, it is God who comforts in Jerusalem.  The juxtaposition of nursing with comforting is clear as well.  Long before our modern psychological studies, the prophets knew that nursing and comfort and attachment all to together.

And today in the Church age after the coming of Christ and the extending of God’s peace to us, Jerusalem does feed us, through the meal that Christ gave us in his Lord’s Supper.  Through the Supper we are continually spiritually joined to Christ and his body, the Church, the New Jerusalem.  It’s a vital part of our attachment to Mother Kirk.  Without its faithful partaking, as with the infant without a nursing mother, it is not impossible that we should grow in the Church, but it is against God’s design, and only makes things needlessly difficult.

Finally, I did mention that nursing is critical in infancy, because of that child’s development.  If the first months are neglected, all is not necessarily lost, but both infant and mother have been deprived of God’s designed way to facilitate a loving bond.  Neither mother nor child might even realize what has been missed.  Obviously, the infant has no conscious understanding of what is happening when it nurses.  But something has been lost, which cannot easily be recovered.

Likewise, if we neglect God’s designed way to nourish and strengthen the bond between the Church and her members, and if we say the Church should not feed her little ones, we shouldn’t be surprised if they do not attach, and later grow away from Mother Kirk.  As with an infant, it is not so much the understanding of being fed that is important.  It is the feeding itself.

And so the Church must feed its children, especially the little ones.  Because it makes the faith of the Church the faith of the child.  A son of the Church will grow with and into the conscious understanding that it is not his parents who ultimately give true spiritual food, it is Jesus Christ Himself, working through his Bride and Body the Church.  The daughter of the Church will know from experience that it was not her own understanding that saved her, but only Christ who set her apart at birth and fed her from the day she could handle solid food.

So in what way did the fruit of the Tree convey death to Adam and to the human race after him? Was the fruit toxic? Did it carry in it a hereditary disease? Not at all. The fruit itself was good for eating, for God created all things good. It was covenant commandment that was attached to the fruit that conveyed with it consequences. Adam brought death to himself and to his race by eating the fruit, but it was not the fruit that killed him. It was the covenant sanctions attached to disobedience that brought death.

Today, the Church also has a covenant food. A meal with blessings and curses attached to it. It has become common among even Reformed Christians to say that in the Lord’s Supper, nothing actually happens. The bread and wine do not physically become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and therefore it would be superstitious to think that the bread and wine are anything special or that eating them might actually do anything to or for you, right? After all they are only useful as means to help us to remember Christ’s sacrifice.

But that is not how covenant food works. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that those who eat and drink unworthily eat and drink judgment to themselves. The reciprocal is also true. When we eat and drink rightly, we have true fellowship with Jesus Christ. Is it anything inherent in the bread and wine that brings this about? Not at all. But that does not diminish the use of bread and wine, for they are covenant symbols (there is nothing “mere” about a symbol) of what they represent, namely the body and blood of Jesus Christ. To dishonor the elements or to use them lightly is to dishonor Christ himself. Not because the elements have been mystically changed, but because they represent him as their covenant function.

A good analog might be the Reformed doctrine of imputation. When God justifies and declares us righteous, he does so on account of Jesus’ righteousness, in commendation of a righteousness we do not have in ourselves.  Even so, the covenant food is imputed or reckoned to be to us Christ’s body and blood.  It is the God the Holy Spirit who applies the reality of the sign so that it is as if you had eaten his flesh and drank his blood, as he says we must do in John 6.

Just as it is the Spirit that applies the reality of the sign, it is the Spirit that judges the use of the sign.  When Adam misused covenant food it was not the food that judged him, but God himself.  So also if we misuse our covenant food it is God who judges, not the food. There is no active causality in the food, but there is direct correlation.

But the Table of the Lord is intended for life. God has given us an easy enough guideline to follow for worthy partaking that even a child can do it. One who eats of the Church’s covenant food need not be sinless or especially knowledgeable. They must simply eat in faith and in fellowship, waiting for and upon one another in love. This is no forbidden fruit to bring us death. The covenant food is intended to bring life to those who eat it in covenant.  It must be taken in faith, yes, but also God strengthens faith through it.  Surely even faith so small as a mustard seed.

Many times we simply assume that this means in remembrance of Jesus’ death on the cross.  After all, that commandment was given “on the night on which he was betrayed,” the evening before he went to the cross.  But at the same time, we should not turn the Lord’s Table into the commemoration of an event, for it is given to us to be the remembrance of a person.

Communion is given to us to remember Christ and all that he is.  Of course this includes remembering his primary earthly mission to die on the cross for the atonement of sin.  But in remembering the event we must not lose sight of the whole person.  There is a historical and eschatological aspect to what we do at the Table.  We must remember Jesus Christ—who he was, what he became, what he did, who he is and what he is doing now, and what he has yet promised to do.  Every time we eat and drink, we declare (in the present) Christ’s death (in the past) until he comes (in the future).  What Paul says here has a scope as broad as all of history, which requires the remembering of Christ’s whole person and work.

Therefore, we should not have an unhealthy preoccupation with Jesus’ suffering when we approach the table.  Yes, we remember it as an essential part of who he is and what he did on our behalf.  But that is not all he is.  When we remember Jesus, let us remember him as very God the Son, sent from the Father, who took on our human nature, who was sinless, who died for sin and rose again, who ascended to the right hand of the Father, who makes intercession, who meets with us in worship, who will come again to judge the living and the dead, and who will claim his bride, the Church, to close the final chapter of history.  If we neglect any of these things in communion and instead turn the Table into the memorial of a single event, then I think we do not properly remember Jesus Christ, the person.

Historically, the Eucharistic prayer has been specifically worded to remember Christ in this way.  In a full prayer, rather than reducing the remembrance only to Jesus’ betrayal and death, we remember Jesus the person and all he has done, is doing and will yet do.  This is not to say that we must have a written prayer that follows a strict wording preapproved by some hierarchical oversight (not to say there is anything inherently wrong with precomposed prayers either).  Justin Martyr describes the early Eucharistic prayers as extemporaneous.  But whether extemporaneous or precomposed, the prayer should be framed to deliberately remember and offer thanksgiving for and to Jesus Christ the person.

I was reading the Exodus story in the past couple days, and was struck by a few things that I want to share here.

The story of the deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh is a type for the deliverance of the Church from sin and death.  God comes to redeem His people, his chosen ones, and to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey.  But as we read Exodus, we find that God early on gives a specific purpose for Israel to leave Egypt.

Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to to the LORD our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”

~Exodus 5:1-3

There are a couple times before Israel’s final deliverance that Moses and Aaron make this less drastic request of Pharaoh.  And of course, as God had told Moses He would, He hardened Pharaoh’s heart against this request.  But I want to point out that there is a particular purpose in the request itself.  YHWH tells Pharaoh to let Israel go in order that they might hold a feast to Him.

Now, as we continue reading through the Pentateuch we find that a feast has a specific purpose.  It is not just a grand ol’ time where the people of God gorge themselves and get drunk like the pagans at their feasts.  Rather, it is a solemn occasion of remembrance.  Yes, the feasts are joyous celebrations, but they are held for one purpose: worship of the One True God.  So essentially, God is telling Pharaoh to let Israel go out into the wilderness to worship, and the means by which they are to worship is the feast.

When Moses restates YHWH’s demand, he makes this even clearer.  Now  rather than call it merely a feast, he says that they must go to sacrifice to YHWH.  The feast and the sacrifice are inextricably linked.

In the same way, God has redeemed us from the power of sin and death . . . for what?  To worship.  It is the expressly given purpose of our deliverance.  It is the chief goal of man’s existence, which we can only fulfill in Christ.  And when we gather as the Church to worship, we offer the sacrifice of our songs and praises, our acclamations, and of our very selves.  And we partake in a feast to the LORD our God, which Christ gave us at his last supper before going to the cross.

There is another interesting point we can glean from the various encounters with Pharaoh.  Initially, the demand is simply that he let God’s chosen people go out into the wilderness for three days to observe the feast and the sacrifice.  But we know, of course, that Pharaoh will not comply with these demands.  Not until his nation has been destroyed by plagues and he himself lies drowned in the Red Sea.  At that point the deliverance promised by God to Israel is complete.  It is not only for a short time that He delivers Israel to observe the feast, but it is a permanent deliverance.

Just so, when God commands us to worship, we cannot do so until He has ultimately delivered us.  There is no going to worship God and then returning to Egypt.  That is an impossibility.  Sin and death as principalities are cruel and unyielding masters that will not allow us to leave for a time, worship God and then return to them.  In order to engage in true worship, we must be freed in a permanent and ultimate way with no thought of going back to the place from which we came.

I think there is some significance to the three days journey into the wilderness even though the journey never happened as first asked of Pharaoh.  It is perhaps enough that Moses stated the three days as the original demand.  Israel must go into the wilderness for three days to make sacrifice.  Christ as the ultimate representative of Israel is the final fulfillment of this.  For on behalf of His chosen people, after instituting the feast of the Lord’s Supper He journeyed into the wilderness of death for three days, Himself being the final sacrifice to atone for sin.

There is one more thing I want to bring out from this part of the Exodus story.  Sometimes Pharaoh seems to be on the verge of complying with the demand of YHWH, but he always seems to put limits on his obedience.  At one point, Pharaoh even tells Moses that he will let the people go . . . but there’s a catch:

Then Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. And he said to them, “Go, serve the LORD your God. But which ones are to go?” Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the LORD.”

But he said to them, “The LORD be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. No! Go, the men among you, and serve the LORD, for that is what you are asking.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.

~Exodus 10:7-11

Pharaoh will allow Israel to go . . . but only the men.  It is as if Pharaoh says, “Isn’t that enough?  Your covenant heads may go and worship and sacrifice.  The children need not.”

No doubt some will point out that he simply wished to keep the children behind as a guarantee that his slaves would actually return.  And as far as Pharaoh is concerned this is probably true.  But I think there is more than just that going on here.  Moses will not concede these limits put on God’s demands, and he gives the reason.  The whole family unit must be allowed to go.  The men, the young and old, their sons and daughters must go . . . why?  For we must hold a feast to the LORD.

What does this tell us about how God regards the children of believers in relation to worship?  Simply this: they must be included in the worship of God’s people, and in the feast.  It is not right for the parents to worship and leave the children aside.  God wants even the little ones to observe the feast and the sacrifice.  The old and young, our sons and daughters alike must be taught to worship.  It is for this reason that He redeems the little ones as much as the men (the covenant heads) from sin and death, just as He would not accept that Israel’s little ones should be left in the hands of Pharaoh.

There are basically two ways of translating “anamnesis,” which is the word Christ uses in the institution of the Lord’s Supper when he says “do this in remembrance of me,” or “do this as my memorial.”

They mean basically the same thing, but the emphasis is different.  In any case, tied to the word anamnesis is the issue of remembering.  In a Eucharistic or Old Testament sacrificial context, it is the remembering of what God has done for his people and offering of oneself to him in return.  It is thanksgiving.

But what does it mean to remember?  Is remembrance a mere cognitive exercise, or is there something more to it?  Of course today, when we use the word, we generally mean simply to bring a past event to mind.  But is this a Biblical view of remembrance?

In his milestone work, The Shape of the Liturgy, Dom Gregory Dix modified the Roman Catholic suggestion of re-sacrifice¹ in the Eucharist to something a little less offensive to the Biblical mind.  Or much less so.  He defines remembrance as the act of making present.²

According to Dix, when the church remembers the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist, they are recalling it not only to mind, but also to present effect.  Remembrance brings the effects of a past event to bear on the present.  It identifies one directly with those people for whom that past event was a present reality.

Of course, since the popularization of this view, Roman Catholics have been using it to stump their Protestant friends who accuse them of viewing the Eucharist as a re-sacrifice.  “Why, no we don’t!  We believe it is simply a making present of the past sacrifice.”

Well, yeah, that’s true as far as it goes, but that’s only because they changed their tune.  Of course, they still believe it means to make physically present . . . though not locally, and that is where we go down the rabbit trail of medieval categories.

But aside from the dissonance, what about the basic melody of this new tune?  Is it any more pleasant than the last?  Let’s take a look.

First there is the language of how God himself remembers.

Genesis 9:15
I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Exodus 2:24
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

There are many other similar examples.  And there is one interesting example that seems to have a very strong relation to God’s presence.

Numbers 10:9
And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the LORD your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies.

We should realize by now that Biblically speaking, remembrance is more than a cognitive recollection.  God certainly does not need to be cognitively reminded of his people or covenants.  He knows all, and he does not forget.  We should also note that when God remembers, it is always a catalyst to action.  The remembrance and the resulting action are so inseparable as to be one and the same.

So what about human remembrance?  How does God command us to remember?

Deuteronomy 15:15
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.

Was this command for that generation of the Exodus only?  This is after the forty years wandering in the wilderness.  An entire generation perished because of unbelief.  Most of those to whom Deuteronomy was given never saw slavery in Egypt.  How can they then rightly remember that God delivered them?  This is a question made all the more stark when we consider that the memorial sacrifices and feasts were to be observed by Israel continually.  Was the celebration of Passover by succeeding generations a mere cognitive exercise or was it an act of identification with God’s deliverance?

I read this passage a couple weeks ago, and found it quite interesting.  Pay attention especially to the pronouns.

Deuteronomy 26:3-10
“And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare today to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.’ Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God.

“And you shall make response before the LORD your God, ‘a wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O LORD, have given me.’

Notice how the perspective shifts in the act of remembrance.  The one offering thanksgiving here moves from a sort of separation between himself and his fathers to the point where speaks of himself and his fathers as one identity.  “A wandering Aramean was my father . . . he went down into Egypt” becomes “the Egyptians treated us harshly . . . the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand . . . and gave us this land.”

See how the identity of Israel as a people converge into one identity.  What God did for the fathers he did for the one who offers thanksgiving.  The suffering of the fathers is to be remembered as the suffering of the one who makes sacrifice, so that the deliverance of God might be known for all generations.

How does this apply to us?  Well, if Abraham is our father, we must do the same.  The deliverance of Israel we must recognize as our own.  The word of the prophets called us to repentance.  And finally, Jesus died and rose again for us.  When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we make present that reality in the sense that we identify ourselves with the sacrifice of Christ.  In remembrance, the Holy Spirit really (spiritual realities are real no less than the physical) applies to us the effects of the sacrifice.

Benjamin Warfield, in speaking of the Lord’s Supper, wrote this:

Assuredly, for example, the sacrificial feast is not a repetition of the sacrifice; and equally certainly it is something more than a mere commemoration of the sacrifice: it is specifically a part of the sacrifice, and more particularly this part—the application of it. . . . Precisely what our Lord did therefore . . . he, the true Passover, the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world—was to establish a perpetual sacrificial feast, under universal forms, capable of observation everywhere and at all times . . . All who partake of this bread and wine, the appointed symbols of his body and blood, therefore, are symbolically partaking of the victim offered on the altar of the cross, and are by this act professing themselves offerers of the sacrifice and seeking to become beneficiaries of it. That is the fundamental significance of the Lord’s Supper.  Whenever the Lord’s Supper is spread before us we are invited to take our place at the sacrificial feast, the substance of which is the flesh and blood of the victim which has been sacrificed once for all at Calvary . . . ³

So then, with Dix, we might affirm that remembrance is indeed a making present to us the reality of Christ’s one sacrifice, and with Warfield, who it appears would agree with that, we say that it is the application of the sacrifice to the one who partakes.

Anamnesis, then, is the recollection to us the realities of the past in such a way that they may no longer be thought of to be a mere past reality brought to mind, but a present one as well.

There are more things to look at in this.  For instance, how our celebration of the Supper brings us to God’s remembrance, and so into his presence.  I don’t want anyone to think I overlooked that.  Dix deals with this at length, and to properly address Dix, we have to consider that sense of the word.  But this is enough for one post.  I’ll probably look at this again.

We are into the third week of Advent, with Christmas less than a couple weeks off.  So I wanted to take a brief look at the Gospel of Luke, and particularly at Luke’s theme of Jesus as the Bread of Life.

Luke never actually calls Jesus “the bread of life”—that title comes from John’s Gospel.  But the theme of Jesus and His relationship and identification with bread runs deep through Luke’s account, with stories like the feeding of the five thousand, the comparing of the kingdom to leaven, etc.  In fact, the Gospel of Luke is bookended by stories that relate to bread.

At the end of Luke’s gospel we have the story of Jesus meeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus.  The crucifixion has taken place just a couple days prior, and two disciples are returning home from Jerusalem, somber for the events of the past week.  Jesus meets them on the road and expounds the entire Scripture to them and how the witness of the prophets made it plain that the Messiah must die and rise again on the third day.

Even so, they don’t really get it until Jesus administers to them the first Eucharist after the institution at the Last Supper.  He takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them.  That’s when their eyes are opened.  Jesus is here!  He is present with us now in the breaking of bread. It is the first anamnesis, and the disciples immediately recall what is meant by this ritual action.  Apart from the berakah, there are no words spoken by Jesus here.  It is the action itself that is the memorial—that reveals Christ to them and makes present the moment when he first took bread and said “This is my body, which is given for you.”

By now, Jesus has vanished, but his disciples have gotten the point.  So they do exactly the same thing that we are commissioned to do after every observance of the Supper—they return to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news of Christ’s resurrection:

Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
~Luke 24:35

In the same way, Jesus is known to us also in the breaking of bread.  It is Luke’s final lesson to us (until we get to Acts, where there is much more breaking of bread).

But back to our Christmas theme.  The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is the climax of Luke’s gospel.  It’s the realization of what he foreshadowed at the beginning of his account.

It is not insignificant for Luke that Jesus is born in a town called Bethlehem—the house of bread.  Matthew also records that Jesus is born in Bethlehem, but he is more focused on how the birth in Bethlehem fulfills the Old Testament prophets, and makes less of the name itself.

Luke, on the other hand, leaves aside the prophets for a moment to set out for us the scene of Jesus’ birth.  He first gives an extended account of what brought Mary and Joseph to this remote town, and then, in case we missed the significance of the town’s name, he includes the detail of Mary laying Jesus in a feeding trough (Luke 2:7).  The point is repeated and emphasized when the angels proclaim the good news to the shepherds.  “This will be a sign for you: you’ll find a baby . . . lying in a feeding trough” (verse 12).  Wait . . . that’s a sign?  A sign of what?  Again a third time, in case our wits are slow, Luke tells us: “They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a feeding trough” (verse 16).

In Bethlehem.  In the house of bread.

So.  Have we got it yet?

Sources and additional reading:

LaVerdiere, Eugene. 2008. The Firstborn of God. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications

“Ubi tu Caius, ego Caia.”
“Wherever thou art Caius, there I am Caia.”

I first came upon this phrase when reading Quo Vadis, and thought it was the sweetest thing ever.  After having given it some thought, I like it even more.  These are the words that were spoken by a Roman bride at her wedding, probably in response to the groom’s question, “What is your name?”

After the bride’s response, the groom would then (ideally) sweep her off her feet and carry her across the threshold into his home.

I think the phrase is pretty much the most succinct and, at the same time, possibly the most romantic one I have ever heard or read of in a wedding.  But there are specific reasons I find it so, which transcend mere sentimentality.  Those Romans were not much for bandying about words.  Not like the Greeks, in any case.  The less said the better, if it got the point across.  And these words are loaded.

We are all familiar with the traditional wedding vows, and the Roman one is much like them.  One might even find that our modern form originates here in part.  In this phrase, the bride vows to go and to be wherever her husband is, whenever he is.  Eternity is implied.  The phrase encapsulates the marriage vow (at least the bride’s side of it) into five words in the Latin.

It is also a symbolic renaming.  The bride declares that she is taking the name of her groom.  In this case, not literally.  There were dudes not named “Caius” who got married in Rome.  The name Caius/Caia (or Gaius/Gaia) means happiness and rejoicing.  An appropriate description of a wedding, intended to portend the fortunes of the new couple.

But no matter the given names of the couple, the symbolism remains.  The bride declares that she will henceforth be identified with her husband, as she has been identified with her father until this point.  In fact, by using the name Caius/Caia, she pledges not only her physical presence but her heart and her emotions as well.  Wherever he rejoices, there she also will find her joy.

To a Christian, what does this mean?  Can we possibly learn anything from the pagan Romans?  Sure, why not?  In the same way that the bride pledges her life to her groom and takes his name upon herself, we also have pledged our lives to Christ and taken His name.

The Church is the Bride of Christ, and every one of the baptized community is a member.  From the point of our entrance into that body to now, and until Christ returns, we should ever be saying:  “Wherever thou art Christ, there I am Christian.”

In fact, we do something like this every week before we come to the Lord’s table, our earthly foretaste of the Lamb’s marriage supper.  When the officiant asks the congregation: “Christian, in whom do you believe?” we respond, “I believe in one God the Father Almighty . . . And in one Lord Jesus Christ . . . And in the Holy Spirit.”

“In whom do you believe?” is a question very much like “What is your name?”  For we become identified with that in which we believe.  Our Credo is an affirmation of our baptism into the name of the Triune God.  And having confessed Christ and having declared our identity in Him as a body, we are then welcomed to the wedding feast at His table.