1 THE SACRAMENTS: THE WORD ACTED OUT The highest cannot be spoken, it can only be acted. Goethe REMEMBERED FOR WHAT? What would you like to be remembered for? Jesus performed powerful miracles, but He did not ask to be remembered by demonstrations of His power. He entered this planet in a miraculous and unique way as He, the Son of God, took on human flesh and became a man, but He did not ask to be remembered by His humble, yet momentous, entrance. He preached and taught as no one else, yet He did not ask to be remembered for His authoritative teachings and marvelous, memorable sermons. He lived a life of total obedience, yet He did not ask to be remembered for the perfect life He lived. What He did ask us to remember Him for was His death. But how did He want to be remembered? REMEMBERED HOW? He didn t write any books that we could remember Him by. He didn t establish a shrine where we as His followers are to visit each year. Rather, He asked us to remember Him spiritually, by reflecting on His sacrificial and enduring love, mentally and emotionally, by reflecting on His sufferings, and physically, by handling and tasting His body and blood by partaking of the bread and wine. Therefore all five senses are involved. We know this is the best way we remember. Not only by hearing or seeing, smelling or tasting, but also by touching. We are to enter into His death by all our five senses.
2 This is why we celebrate Holy Communion. We celebrate by remembering... His death... in a memorable way. THE WORD IS CENTRAL The Word of God is central to our worship. It is God's vehicle to reveal Himself and His message of salvation. And God's Word comes to us through two primary means: the Word spoken and the Word acted out. The sacraments are rooted in the incarnation of God in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14). It is in the proclamation (Preaching and teaching) of the Word that it is heard and it is in the acting out (sacraments) of the Word that it is seen. The eye gate as well as the ear gate is used by God to reveal His enduring truth. This is why God has given us the sacraments, which are a visible Word. The word "ordinance" refers to a mandate given by our Lord to practice certain rites. As Protestants, we believe these rites are baptism and the Lord's Supper. "Sacrament" is a Latin term for what is "sacred" or "set apart." The word itself means "mystery" in Greek and may have been chosen because it conveyed the secret meaning of a sign or symbol (as in Rev 1:20 and 17:7). The Latin term "sacrament" appears to have been adopted by the church because it most accurately conveys two of the principal ideas of the rite: symbol and allegiance. The idea is that of an "oath", "vow" or "pledge." It became associated with a soldier's sacred oath of allegiance, and so it came to mean a "pledge of religious affiliation." This term was appropriate to use by the church since the early Christians, when they were ready to be baptized into the fellowship of the church, took a vow to forsake their former sinful ways of the world. They pledged that they would no longer follow the dictates of the world, the flesh and the devil. The word "sacrament" eventually came to describe not only the vow of allegiance, but also the entire rite of initiation (baptism) of which the vow was the first part. The Lord's Supper also came to be called a "sacrament" since initiation into the church fellowship by baptism gave the person the privilege of partaking of the meal. A classic definition of sacraments, contained in the catechism of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, states that they are "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." John Calvin made it clear that the sacraments were a concession which God made to the weakness that He knew was inherent in our flesh. Because of God's majesty and holiness and man's sinfulness and finitude, God has revealed Himself only in such terms as man is able to
3 comprehend and receive. He has veiled His bright being in certain sings and symbols adapted to man's capacity for seeing and understanding. Thus God has revealed Himself to man primarily in these "last days" through the word and the sacraments. Calvin defines a sacrament as "an outward sign, by which the Lord seals in our consciences the promises of His goodwill toward us, to support the weaknesses of our faith; and we on our part testify our piety towards Him, in His presence and that of angels, as well as before men. 1 As Protestants we accept only baptism and the Lord's Supper as the two sacraments of the church. Only these sacraments were specifically appointed by Christ. The five sacraments of confirmation, penance, extreme unction, marriage and ordination are not accepted as legitimate sacraments. This does not mean that we do not believe in some of these institutions, but only that they are not considered sacraments. In the case of marriage, for instance, while it is an ordinance instituted by God, it is not a sacrament of the church since faith in Christ is unnecessary for its legitimacy. People do not need to have faith in Christ or belong to the church to be lawfully married. However in the case of baptism and the Lord's Supper, faith is the essential ingredient and when these rites are observed, there is the church. The sacrament of baptism declares the initial identification of the believer with Christ and His church, whereas the sacrament of the Lord's Supper proclaims the continuing fellowship of the believer with his Lord and his church. Baptism, symbolizing the new birth, is observed once, whereas the Lord's Supper is a repeated reminder that spiritual life is maintained and strengthened by the continual fellowship with Christ and with those who share that life in Christ. THE LORD'S SUPPER: RITE OF CONTINUING FELLOWSHIP GOD'S PRESENCE The Bible is clear that God's presence is found everywhere. Often God is found at unexpected places. Elijah sought God in the earthquake and the fire and the mighty wind, but God came in the still, small voice. Brother Lawrence sought God before the altar, but God came to him in the kitchen as he washed pots and pans to God's glory. He testified: "In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament."
4 THE SAME GOSPEL A sacrament is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."3 The sacraments do not convey any benefits other than what God has promised to us in the spoken Word of the gospel. And the gospel is the Good News that God pardons all our sins and by faith freely justifies us (Eph. 2:8-9). Because His Son Jesus Christ died on the cross in our place the righteous for the unrighteous" (1 Pe 3:18) this Good News is the same message which the sacraments declare to us by visible acts. MEANS OF GRACE In that the sacraments represent, seal and apply to believers the benefits of Christ's saving work, they may be said to be a "means of grace." It is unfortunate that this expression "means of grace" has been used to teach that the sacraments in and of themselves, apart from hearing and believing the gospel, convey the grace of salvation. This is to make the sacraments rather than the Word the primary channel of grace. This belief, known as "sacramentalism," subverts the order of the New Testament. The New Testament always begins with the Word proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit and heard with the hearing of faith, and then proceeds to the public confession of faith by receiving baptism and partaking of the Lord's Supper. In contrast to sacramentalism Scripture makes clear that where the one participating has no faith in Christ as He is proclaimed in the gospel, there is no real sacrament, in the sense of conveying grace, no matter how accurate and precise the pronouncements and the acts are done by the person administering the rite. It is, however, regrettable that some evangelicals, in reacting to sacramentalism, have become indifferent to the sacraments, as though they did not matter at all. This is to assume that one is wiser than the Lord Himself, who instituted the sacraments to be observed by the church, which His apostles were careful to do. VARIOUS VIEWS The Roman Catholic interpretation of what takes place when we observe the Lord's Supper is that we literally partake of Jesus' body and blood, the bread and wine being miraculously changed, though there is no change in their outward appearance (transubstantiation). This position turns the Communion table into an altar and the meal into a sacrifice called the "mass" which repeats the original sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. It seems strange to believe that there is nothing but Christ's flesh and blood present, when we clearly see nothing but bread and wine.
5 We are never called in faith to affirm what the senses plainly deny. To do so is to go beyond faith to presumption. Furthermore, to speak of repeating over and over again the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is to contradict Scripture which clearly states that Jesus' death differed from the sacrifices of the Old Testament in that it was once for all and never to be repeated (Heb 9:23-28). The Lutheran interpretation is that while the bread and wine are not changed into Christ's body and blood (transubstantiation), there is, in both the bread and body, both wine and blood, some sort of mystical union (consubstantiation). This view teaches that Jesus is physically present in the elements of the Eucharist. This view appeals to Jesus' words when He instituted the Supper: "This is My Body" (Mk 14:22). But there is no more compelling reason to take this sentence literally than the one where Jesus says, "I am the door" (Jn 10:9). A large segment of the church has been led by such literalism to superstitious fear of spilling the wine-transformed-into-christ's-blood, to the practice of denying the cup to the people. Thus in Communion they are given only the bread. This practice ("communion in one kind") deprives the believer of much of the blessing that is rightfully his when he comes to the Lord's Table: the Scriptures, the hymns of the church, as well as the prayers used in all ages. In fact the term "blood": is often used (while the word "body" is not) of the saving work of Christ as a whole. We are "justified by blood" (Eph 1:7); Christ's blood is by far superior to the blood of Christ" by which we have been redeemed (1 Pe 1:19) and by which we have overcome Satan, the great adversary of our souls (Rev 12:11). A MYSTERY Just how Jesus is really present spiritually in Communion even the systematic theologian John Calvin had to admit to ignorance. Just as we cannot reach the heights of God's strange and endless love for us, so we cannot possibly plumb the depths of the mystery of the sacraments. With Calvin we have to confess that Jesus' presence is a mystery too sublime to be expressed:
"It is a mystery of Christ's union with the devout which is by nature incomprehensible. If anybody should ask me how this communion takes place, I am not ashamed to confess that is a secret too lofty for words to declare. And to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it." 2 6 While mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind, it is the only appropriate attitude in approaching God the Son in the act of partaking of His body and blood. We want a nice formula but faith is content to wonder! "A religion that is small enough for our understanding would not be large enough for our needs." --Lord Arthur Balfour THE PLACE OF FAITH In observing this symbolic meal of bread and wine we partake, by faith, of Christ's body and blood to our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace, just as our physical bodies are nourished outwardly by bread and wine. When we eat the bread and drink the wine, by faith (the "eye of the soul") we discern in these physical elements Christ's body broken and His blood shed for our salvation. Therefore when we reverently take the bread in hand and eat it, and when we put the cup to our lips and drink of it, in "remembrance" of Him, we enjoy a unique "communion", "sharing', "participation", 'fellowship" in Christ's body and blood (1 Co 10:14-16). A living faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is the only ground upon which we can derive any blessing or fellowship" with Him in the meal. But approaching the Supper on that basis we see portrayed in vivid symbol the costly act of sacrifice by which our sin was atoned for, and we meet again our loving Lord, and taste again in faith the benefits of His passion. There we feed on Him by faith in the Spirit and are gathered into communion with Him in His ascended glory. Faith is essential to make the sacraments and the Word of any benefit. We take with us from the sacraments and the proclamation of the Word "no more than we gather with the vessel of faith." 3 The source, however, is always God. He is not only the source of grace which He mediates through the preaching of the Word and the participation of the sacraments, but He is the Source even of faith itself, the vehicle by which God's grace is ministered. Therefore, all is of grace. "Christianity is not the sacrifice we make, but the Sacrifice we trust!" 4 --P.T. Forsyth
7 SELF-EXAMINATION The Bible is crystal clear that the memorial of Christ's death only belongs to those who have tasted of the benefits of that death. Since it is the Lord's Table it does not belong to any particular local church or denomination; it belongs to all of God's people. The requirement for participation is that we know in a personal way the power of the God of the Bible. However, there is another stipulation in approaching the Lord's Table. And it is here that the sacredness of this meal is seen. Paul warns the congregation at Corinth: "... Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep [died]. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment (1 Co 11:27-31). When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world" (1 Co 11:27-32). At the Passover Feast the Jew was exhorted to look in, by purifying himself and his household from any thing that was evil. Before the feast could take place there was a day of purification (following a time of spring-cleaning) when the head of the house would perform a little ritual. He would take a light in one hand and a pair of thongs in the other, and systematically search through the house, looking for any scrap of leaven (representing sin). Since the house had already been thoroughly cleaned already, he probably never found any leaven, but his concern for purity was to be so great that he would not take any chances. Before the Passover Feast could be held in his house, every trace of corruption had to be removed. Paul's warning to the Corinthian believers referred to specific abuses of drunkenness and greed which were corrupting the Lord's Supper. There was great insensitivity as the more well-todo members quickly ate the food (since they were the ones who brought it) so that there was nothing left for the poor believers. This violated fellowship and unity which the Supper represented (1 Co 10:17). Paul is not referring to perfection or not one person could partake of this meal. Rather he is pointing to the seriousness of sin and the sacredness of the Table.
8 Paul is saying that as with the symbolic day of purification, we must have a time of "springcleaning" whereby we "ransack" our own hearts, allowing the light of the Spirit of Christ to search for any trace of remaining sin, before we partake in the Lord's Supper. While we cannot make ourselves clean, we can confess and bring out into the open anything that we know is wrong, in order that God might forgive and cleanse. That is the significance of Paul's directive: "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast--as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Co 5:7-8). God requires moral living, sensitivity to the needs and feelings of our fellow believers and that we approach Him in sincerity and truth. A PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE There is in the term "sacrament" the concept of "allegiance" from its Latin meaning. The Latin "sacramentum" often meant an "oath", "vow" or "pledge" of allegiance by which the Roman soldiers bound themselves to their commanders and their country. This indicates that the Lord's Supper was not a mere symbol, but a solemn vow of allegiance of the believer to his Lord. A DYNAMIC MEMORIAL The words, "This do in remembrance of Me" points to the fact that the Lord's Supper is first and foremost a memorial. On the last night with His disciples, Jesus chose the memorial by which He wanted to be remembered. He did not ask that a book be compiled of His memoirs; or that a mausoleum be named for Him. He requested instead that every time the disciples met together they should break bread and share the cup in His memory. In the simple act of eating and drinking together they were to be reminded of Him. Because the human mind so easily forgets with time, Jesus instituted this memorial as a means of stabbing awake the memory which has become forgetful or lethargic. Even the most poignant event loses its poignancy as the years go on. Therefore we need regular reminders of the event. The most momentous event in the Christian religion is the death of Christ, and the Lord's Supper is Jesus' way of reminding us of what He went through on our behalf and what He accomplished for us on the cross.
9 Those who partake of the Lord's Supper are led to contemplate its purpose and lesson in the same way the Passover meal prodded memories of deliverance of Israelites from Egypt and slavery and of the judgment of death of the firstborn. The Passover feast was not just a remembrance; in a sense God's people were called to relive their deliverance. The bitter herbs were used to forcefully remind them of the bitterness of the bondage that their fathers had suffered in Egypt; and the cups spoke of their coming salvation. The rabbis put it: "In every generation a man must so regard himself as if he came forth out of Egypt." Every member of the household had to eat the Passover as if he were taking part in, or reliving his own deliverance from bondage. As the head of the household would hold the loaf of bread in his hand, he would say "This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate when they came out of Egypt." This bread as it symbolized and represented the bread eaten by their fathers, helped the Jews to share vividly with the experience when we look at the words of Jesus at the Last Supper. "This is My body... This is My blood." Remembrance then does not only include God's mighty acts in Creation and the Exodus but also in the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. But the focus is not on His selfless and sacrificial life, however perfect; not on his peerless teachings, however beautiful and authoritative. The focus of remembrance, says Jesus, must be on His death. As we come to the Lord's Table our thoughts are primarily focused on Jesus and His saving death on our behalf. The very symbols used: bread symbolizing His broken body and wine symbolizing His shed blood clearly and emphatically point to His death. The Taj Mahal is one of the world's most famous monuments. Shah Hehan of India spared no expense in erecting this fabulous memorial to his beloved wife. The legend on the cornerstone reads: To the memory of an undying love." Over the memorial of the Lord's Supper we may engrave a finer line: "To the memory of a dying love." THE EUCHARIST: A FEAST OF THANKSGIVING One of the names for the Lord's Supper is "Eucharist," which comes from a Greek word meaning "the giving of thanks." This is one of the most beautiful names for the Lord's Supper since it focuses not only on the gift of salvation and other gifts pertaining to our salvation, but it centers our attention on the Giver.
10 At the Passover Feast certain psalms were sung called the "Hallel." The title is taken from the repeated use of the word "hallelujah" "Praise the lord" at the beginning and end of some of the psalms. Psalms 113-188 provide the basis of this outburst of thanksgiving. Here are the hallelujahs' sung by a grateful people. Our Lord shared in this at the time of the Passover as He instituted the Last Supper which followed and replaced the Passover Feast. During the meal there were occasions of thanksgiving to God as Jesus "blessed" God and "gave thanks." What Jesus and the disciples were facing looked like defeat, but Jesus knew it ultimately meant victory. And so He asked the disciples to continue to celebrate the victory with a Eucharistic feast even though the victory was one in which the Conqueror Himself lost His life. This joyful sense of thanksgiving is reflected in the accounts of the early Christians as they broke bread together with "glad and generous hearts" (Ac 2:46). HOLY COMMUNION: AN INTIMATE COMMUNION Participation in the Lord's Supper is a present participation and communion with Christ himself. Paul makes this point crystal clear when he states: "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Co 10:16) At the sacred table God uses the material bread and wine as a medium to bring spiritual nourishment. They point us to the crucified and risen Christ. "We taste Thee, O thou Living Bread And long to feast upon thee still; We think of Thee, the Fountain Head, And thirst our souls from Thee to fill." As we partake of His supper, Christ is giving Himself to us anew--given to us by faith. His life becomes ours: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). We call this meal Communion because the bread and wine symbolize our oneness with and in Christ.
11 It is called Communion also because it symbolizes the communion or fellowship of God's people, the church. Paul makes this clear: "Because there is one loaf, we, who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf" (1 Co 10:17). We literally are "blood brothers" through the blood of Christ. We are bound together because we are bound to Christ. A JOYOUS CELEBRATION At the Passover Feast the Jew was encouraged to look forward in hope as he waited in anticipation for the messianic age when Messiah would return and free His people. This would be the time when God's purposes for Israel would be fulfilled. An extra place would be set at the table represented by an empty chair to show their anticipation and expectation of the coming of Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah. At the Communion we are encouraged to look forward as well: "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes" (1 Co 11:26). Communion is an expression of hope as we commit ourselves to the future with Christ, confident of what He will do with us in the days that lie ahead. Communion is an affirmation of the church's faith in the Second Advent of our Lord: her "blessed hope the glorious appearing of her great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13). Jesus had said to His disciples: "I will tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God" (Mk 14:25). With the assurance of Christ's living presence, the Christian community can rejoice that the reign of Christ has already begun. It can therefore look forward, full of confidence and hope, to the marriage feast of the Lamb where we shall share the heavenly fellowship meal with all believers of all ages. "People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God" (Lk 13:29). It will be one table, the Lord's Table to which all those who have entered into the new covenant of grace will be an invited guest.
12 Holy Communion can be a genuine banquet of the spirit as it was for Alexander Whyte, the Scottish preacher, of whom it has been written: "The sacraments became more and more precious to him. They were the great events of the year, and he journeyed from one of them to the next as a man counts landmarks on his pilgrimage. In them he rose above the earth altogether. They were genuine banquets of the spirit, symposia where men ate and drank at the table of God, places for conversation between the soul and Christ, where all that his life had strained after and his faith had laid hold on became the actual and present reality. The sacraments are meant by God to be a dynamic catalyst for spiritual growth. Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung testifies to the central place the sacraments have in the church: "So much is clear: the Lord's Supper is the centre of the Church and of its various acts of worship. Here the Church is truly itself, because it is wholly with its Lord; here the Church of Christ is gathered for its most intimate fellowship, as sharers in a meal. In this fellowship they draw strength for their service in the world. Because this meal is a meal of recollection and thanksgiving the Church is essentially a community which remembers and thanks. And because this meal is a meal of covenant and fellowship, the Church is essentially a community, which loves without ceasing. And because finally this meal is an anticipation of the eschatological meal, the Church is essentially a community with looks to the future with confidence. Essentially therefore, the Church must be a meal fellowship, a Koinonia or communio; it must be a fellowship with Christ and with Christians, or it is not the Church of Christ. In the Lord's Supper, it is stated with incomparable clarity that the Church is the ecclesia, the congregation, the community of God." 5 The sacraments are a witness and testimony to the enduring quality of the Christian faith. NOTES 1 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.14.1. 2 Ibid., 1278. 3 Ibid., 1315. 4 Peter Forsyth, The Company of the Preachers, Page 1 of 1 cited in http://books.google. com/books?id=gwmtcus62tqc&pg=pa748&1pg=pa748&dg=p+t+...(2/2/2009). 5 Community Planting, Blog Archive, What is Church? Page 1 of 7 cited in http://erikwillits.com/cp/?p=45 (2/3/2009).
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