Your discussion leads me to believe you do not believe the bread and the wine were Jesus Christ's literal body and blood in the sense that we understand it. When Jesus told His disciples they must partake of His flesh and blood, and many left because of this hard saying, Christ during the Last Supper cleared it up for the twelve, for His literal body and blood were not being consumed, despite His use of the same words.
I also believe there is a supernatural communal aspect to the Body of Christ in an eternal sense, for our born again spirit is currently resident together in heaven.
Eph 2:6 And hath raised [us] up together, and made [us] sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus:
Quick sidebar: how is it that a sacrifice made two thousand years ago could cover sins you and I haven't even comitted yet? It's off the timeline. It's eternal. It's beyond beginnings and endings. It ignores the wheres and whens inherent to the temporal. It is transcendent.
Because the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, the cross has eternal significance outside of our time domain. However, within our time domain Abraham looked forward to the cross, just as we look back on the cross. this is how Jesus Christ, while in the flesh on earth, did not know the day or the hour of His return.
Rev 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Gen 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Mar 13:32 But of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Much confusion reading scripture comes from not discerning the perspective the Holy Spirit is trying to convey. Eternal or from within time.
May God richly bless you with those things He deems most meaningful in your life!
Again, if the temporal realm were the only one being delt with here, that would be a compelling argument.
Because the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, the cross has eternal significance outside of our time domain.
I'm glad you bring this up. It highlights the very point I'm trying to make. The sacrifice in question is not so much a temporal event that happened on a hill two thousand years ago as it is an eternal event that spans all time. Because of the eternal nature of it, Christ can sit at a table *prior* to the temporal event, hold up a piece of bread and make the connection to His eternally sacrificed body. Upon making that connection, the bread becomes His body. Literally.
Cognitively, it's not a huge leap from where you are already at.