Think of Jesus the Word / Bread

Calvin is very clear that when we take communion we should think of Christ who is in heaven and not of the bread. Sure. Good point. Yet, Jesus has given us the bread. He is given to us as we eat the bread. So surely he wants us to think about the bread? The bread matters.

Just like the words of the Bible: sure, we should think of Christ, not the words as if they were independent ends in themselves.

Sure, it would be perverse to be fascinated by the variety and colour of bread or the colour of the ink, or the font of the text, but these are probably unusual mistakes (at least in theory). No one advocates this.

It is precisely in the words of the Bible and in the giving of the bread that Christ is given to us. We can hardly attend too much to the words of the Bible or the act of communion, though in both cases we may think too much of the physical object of book and bread.