Altars

The altar is the focus of the sacramental presence of Christ. This piece furniture, the altar, is the place where the worshipping community calls for the promised presence of Christ. So many things are going on at the altar, all focused in the ritual gifts. The bread and wine representing the people-gathered are brought to the altar. God is praised for the very gifts-which-we-are at the very moment that the gifts representing us are placed on the altar. Significantly, Hebrews 13:10 shows Christians having an altar of which those who did not believe in Jesus could not partake, a reference to the eternal, once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, thus fulfilling the sacrificial laws of the Old Testament. In Catholic and Orthodox Christian theology, the Eucharist is a re-presentation, in the literal sense of the one sacrifice being made "present again". Hence, the table upon which the Eucharist is consecrated is called an altar.