The Meaning of the Lord's Supper

In the coming months we hope to celebrate the Lord’s Supper more frequently at JVC. There are some practical reasons for this change; for instance, those who have to miss the first Sunday of the month because of work might go a long time without taking communion. 

Before we move forward with this plan, we need to consider some of the practical issues. First, in order to do this more frequently, we need more people to help with preparing and serving the Lord’s Supper. Second have a significant number of regular attenders who have not yet publicly proclaimed their faith and been baptized. We ask these people to wait until they have done so to participate in the Lord’s Supper. But we also understand that sitting through communion as an observer instead of a participant can feel awkward. We want to ensure that everyone feels welcome and looks forward to the day when they partake of the Lord’s Supper. 

Aside from the practical reasons, why else might we want to celebrate the Lord’s Supper more frequently? Scripture hints that the early church celebrated it weekly, as part of a larger meal, but there isn’t a clear command for us to do likewise. In order to answer that question, we need to understand the sacraments more--what they are and how they benefit us. This month we’ll talk about why we want to celebrate the Lord’s Supper more frequently,  and next month we’ll look at the practice throughout church history. 
 

What Is a Sacrament?

The word “sacrament” doesn't come from the Bible, but from the Latin word sacramentum, an oath of allegiance. Augustine defined a sacrament as an outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual grace. With any sacrament, there is a physical thing (water, bread, wine) and a spiritual grace connected to it. The many sacrifices in the Old Testament were the Israelites’ sacraments. These physical sacrifices didn’t have power in and of themselves to forgive sins, but they pointed believers forward to Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. In the New Testament, baptism and communion pointed believers back to Christ’s past saving work.

The Christian Church largely agrees that sacraments confer grace, but has long debated the nature of the union between the physical signs and the grace they confer. This divide is most easily seen in whom or what the priest/pastor/bishop is speaking to when he gives the words of institution: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body...” In Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and some Anglican traditions these words are spoken to the bread and wine, changing them in some physical way to become containers of grace. In the reformed and evangelical traditions, the words of institution are spoken to the gathered people. In order for the people to benefit from the physical elements of communion, they must have some understanding of the gospel. 
 

How do Sacraments Help Us?

Many evangelical Christians put the emphasis of the sacraments on the individual. Baptism is based on my decision to follow Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is primarily a reminder to me of Christ’s sacrifice. 

Now, while sacraments do require our participation, the heart of it is God’s initiation and promise, which we then respond to. For instance, Abraham begins practicing the Old Testament sacrament of circumcision only after God makes a promise to him. Abraham doesn’t invent it to show his commitment to God; rather, God ordains it as a way to confirm his promises. Abraham responds to what God has already done and promised to do.

What then is the promise of God in the Lord’s Supper? The Heidelberg Catechism Question 75 lays out two:    
 

First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup shared with me, so surely his body was offered and broken for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross.
    Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the one who serves, and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, given me as sure signs of Christ’s body and blood, so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and poured-out blood.

In the Lord’s Supper there is a spiritual union between the physical elements and Christ. One of the most helpful ways to understand this union comes from Peter Vermigili. Vermigili was a leading reformer in Italy in the mid 1500’s. Vermigili saw a parallel in the relationship between the union of Christ’s two natures and his spiritual union with the bread and the wine. The Chalcedonian Creed, one of the definitive statements on the incarnation, specifies that the person of Christ possessed two natures that were neither changed, confused, nor co-mingled. That fact that he is fully God does not change his humanity; nor does the fact that he is fully human deface his divinity. Jesus is truly God and truly man in one person. 

Vermigli believed there is a similar union between Christ and the communion elements. The bread and wine remain bread and wine, yet Christ has united himself to these elements, so that in the one sacrament we partake of real bread, real wine, and Christ himself. To take communion is to truly feed on Christ. Hughes Oliphant Old summarizes Vermiglis’s understanding by saying: 
 

In the incarnation, the humanity of Christ is not turned into divinity but rather sanctified. Likewise, we come to Communion not for divinization, but rather that through this communion with Christ we may become holy as he is holy. Our human flesh and blood remain human flesh and blood, but being sanctified, we become the humanity God always intended us to be.

The Lord’s Supper is an important part of how we grow to become more and more like Christ. And while the grace communicated in the Lord’s Supper is not different from the grace that we receive from hearing the gospel, there is a grace conferred nonetheless. And this grace, tied to these physical elements, nourishes us in a way that complements the preached word. The Lord’s Supper is not just something that reminds us of Christ’s sacrifice; it actually feeds us Christ. As Herman Bavinck writes, “[I]t is the personal living Christ himself who imparts himself in the Supper’s spiritual food.” When we understand what is happening in the Lord’s Supper–that we actually are being nourished by the living Christ–how much more should we come with eagerness to the Table? 

The next time we take communion, I encourage you to not just reflect on what Christ has done, but to realize that you are actually eating and drinking of the life-giving Spirit of Christ, and it is nourishing your soul. Christ, the perfect human, is making you a true human, modeled after his image. What a joy! We do not just remember Christ; we actually partake of him in the Lord’s Supper! 

In Christ, 
Pastor Jon

Read the next newsletter: The Practice of the Lord’s Supper