Tim’s Blog

… to be sure, it sounds very humble to say, as many Anglicans have, “We have no theory. We just believe Jesus’ words, ’This is my body’ without positing any further explanation.” But this is not really a humble or neutral response. It is in fact an audacious claim about Jesus’ communication to His disciples in
the Upper Room. It is a claim that Jesus was deliberately saying something His disciples could not understand; that, in fact, they did not understand it; that Jesus offered no further explanation to alleviate their incomprehension; and finally, that the disciples said nothing to express their bewilderment on this occasion. For that is what we are commenting on: not a ritual or a miracle yet. Even if it might turn out
to be those things on further investigation, we will only discover it to be so by first examining Christ’s words as an utterance, an act of communication. If our account of the meaning of Jesus’ words renders
them incomprehensible to His disciples, or renders the disciples’ reaction a non sequitur, then we may be sure that we have not understood Him correctly.

— Matthew Colvin, The Lost Supper