Small Catechism:  The Lord’s Supper                                                                             W 6^th Lent Midweek

The Feast of Salvation

In the name of him who surrendered for us his body, blood, and Spirit, dear friends in Christ: Several weeks ago, when we began this year’s Lenten pilgrimage, I told you that this season of the Church year has a long history of being used as a time of intense religious instruction. The forty days of Lent were used particularly for preparing new converts to Christianity for the service held on the Vigil of Easter, the Saturday night of Holy Week, when they would be baptized – that is, buried with Christ while he was in the tomb; and then, rising with him to their new lives of faith, they would go into the Easter morning service where they would celebrate Holy Communion with their Lord and the whole body of Christ (the Church) for the first time.  And what I want to stress here is that their partaking in Holy Communion was seen as the final goal of all the rigorous religious instruction (or catechesis, as we call it) that these people were undergoing.  Their inclusion in the Lord’s Supper was the climax that everything else was building toward because they would be at that time fully incorporated into the fellowship of the faithful and sharers of all the divine gifts that Christ gives to his Church.

And that’s really the way they looked at it.  You see, prior to that time, the people who were still undergoing instruction weren’t even allowed to attend the service of Holy Communion.  They’d come to the first part of the Divine Service and sing a hymn or two, and hear the psalms, the readings, and the sermon; but then they would be dismissed before the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper began.  In fact, I’m sure you know that Holy Communion is sometimes called “Mass”, especially in Roman Catholic circles.  That word “mass” comes from the Latin word missa, which means to dismiss or to send away.  So the Mass was the portion of the service that came after the catechism students, or catechumens, were sent off for more study.  After they left, the doors would be closed behind them – which is why we call our practice of restricting who may come to the altar closed communion.  But again the point I want to make is that the Lord’s Supper was the seen by the Church and the catechumens as the one thing that all their training and everything else was leading up to.

This is why it is the last of the Six Chief Parts of the Catechism:  not only is it the goal we’re working toward, but also, in a theological sense, it stands on everything that comes before it.  The Ten Commandments reveal the human problem with sin, the Creed confesses the faith in Christ’s work that saves, the Lord’s Prayer gives living and a forward-looking expression to that faith, Baptism is the Holy Spirit’s work of rebirth and cleansing, and then Confession and the use of the Keys are the daily renewal of the Spirit’s work in Baptism. All of that together is the preparatory groundwork, the basics of the faith.   And if there were any glitches, or misunderstandings, or items for which a catechumen said, “You know, I really like what I’ve been learning here, but there’s this one part I’m just not able to go along with”, well, then it would be, “Thanks very much for looking into it, we don’t want to force you to believe anything against your will, and we really hope you come around; but until you do, sorry, you’ll not be communing with us.”  Why?  Because the person wasn’t sharing the whole confession and faith of the Church that was seen – and is still seen by us – as necessary to be fully incorporated into the fellowship.

And let me say that a big reason that they felt this way, and we still do, is because they held the Sacrament of Holy Communion in such high and holy regard. If it were understood as merely a symbolic thing, or as a memorial meal, or as an outward show of our unity in Christ, then it would be no big deal who communed in the Church. Everyone could be invited.  But if, on the other hand, it was regarded as something profound and sacred and beyond our comprehension in which Christ our Lord unites his very body and blood that was sacrificed for us to the earthly elements in order to give himself to his Church to feed both the bodies and souls of those whom he redeemed, well, then it has to be restricted to those who are both united in their confession of the whole faith and who are “worthy” to receive it.

Now, that word “worthy” throws a lot of people off.  They hear it and think we’re saying that a person has to attain a certain level of goodness before they can be allowed to have communion.  And to be fair, that may be because that’s the way it is taught in some church bodies; which is really kind of strange when you think about it.  Typically, these churches deny that there is really anything supernatural going on in the Lord’s Supper.  They do not believe that Christ our Lord is truly present in, with, and under the sacramental elements like we do; nor do they believe that those who partake are receiving the forgiveness of sins.  But strangely, some of them will go on to say that if you had a pretty rough week spiritually, and you fell into various sins and are feeling guilty about them, then you’d be better off refraining from going to Communion.  In these churches, a person is considered worthy to partake if they are living a good and holy life.  Which really makes me wonder:  how do you know if you’re good enough?  And who, if he’s being really honest with himself about his sin, is still going to sit there and abstain while everyone else communes and thereby announce to all his neighbors that he thinks of himself as unworthy?  So, it’s funny the way it works out:  though we know the church is full of sinners, when worthiness is thought of in terms of goodness, everyone is worthy … or, I feel compelled to add, everyone is a hypocrite.

But when we speak of being worthy to commune, it has nothing to do with how good a person is.  In fact, we recognize that the Lord didn’t give the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to us because we are good.  Exactly the opposite is the case:  Christ gives his body and blood to us sinners to assure us in a tangible way of the sacrifice he made on our behalf to take away our sins.  So, who is worthy?  Sinners are – specifically, we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, sinners who confess their sins, are sorry, and who want to turn from them – and who also recognize that the body of the Lord Jesus is truly present in the Sacrament – and who believe that through the Sacrament they receive the forgiveness of sins.

Who’s not worthy, then?  A person is not worthy if he says that he’s not a sinner, or if he refuses to repent of his sins.  He’s not worthy if he denies that the Lord is truly present in the Sacrament.  And he’s not worthy if he denies that through the Sacrament sins are forgiven.  A person who falls into any or all of those categories is unworthy to receive the Sacrament not because he isn’t good enough; but rather because he wants it for some reason other than what it’s for.  And the Scriptures are clear:  whoever eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself.  This is why in Christian love we refuse to commune those whom we know to be unworthy.  We don’t want them to bring judgment on themselves – nor do we want to help bring judgment on them.  Instead, we want to help and encourage them to come to a state of worthiness so that they can receive the Sacrament properly and to their benefit.

What benefits are we talking about?  I’ve already mentioned several.  The Lord’s Supper is, like Holy Baptism, a true Sacrament.  That is, it was instituted by Christ our Lord himself, it combines his Word and Promises with physical elements (in this case bread and wine), and through it the Lord conveys the forgiveness of sins and the power of his Holy Spirit to receive this forgiveness in faith.  Furthermore, with the forgiveness of sins, the person who partakes also receives to himself salvation, eternal life, and the direction and strength of the Holy Spirit to live according to the will of God.

Now, perhaps some observant person is thinking, “Wait a minute:  he just said that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper accomplish exactly the same thing.  Is that right?  And if so, does that mean that the two Sacraments are interchangeable?”  The answers are “Yes” and “No”.  Yes, the two Sacraments convey the same precious gifts to the person who receives them in faith:  the forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation; but no, they are not interchangeable.  And without going into great detail about the differences, perhaps this may help:  there is something intrinsically personal and individual about Baptism.  It’s your birth into the Kingdom and family of God; and like your natural birth, it happened to you by yourself – no one else was born at precisely the same time and place by the same mother – even if you are a twin.  And your birth happened only once – but it defined who you are and whose child you are.  Baptism does that in a spiritual sense:  it’s individual and it defines you as a child of God and an heir of eternal life through Christ Jesus.  Furthermore, there is something personal and individual in Baptism’s daily renewal in Confession.  No one else can confess your sins for you.  And in this way, you might think of Confession as your daily washing.  It’s private.  You don’t shower and brush your teeth and do whatever else has to be done to make yourself presentable to the world in public.  And even when we confess our sins together as a group, there’s still something very private about it.  Though we all stand together and say the same words, each of us stands alone, our souls naked and ashamed before the Lord.

But the Lord’s Supper is different because the act of eating and drinking has always been understood to be a group activity.  Only in our day, with the introduction of prepackaged TV dinners and microwaveable meals has it ever been possible for people to eat alone.  The ancients – and even our grandparents – would have been horrified at the thought of anyone having to eat by himself.  Part of the reason for that is that there used to be simply too much work involved for one person to do everything that had to be done to support a household and prepare meals too.  But more than that, it was simply understood that food and drink are gifts of God to be received together with family.  Eating and drinking are pleasures to be shared and experienced with people you love.  This was especially true in the Jewish culture, where table fellowship was seen as a high form of intimacy – surpassed only by the special union of a husband and wife.  The family table was for nourishment, yes, but it was also where wisdom was dispensed, plans were made, thoughts and stories were shared, hopes and dreams were expressed, instruction was given, jokes were told, and discipline was maintained. It’s where family life happened – while you ate together. 

The same ideas carry over into the Church’s celebration of Lord’s Supper.  It has a communal dimension – which is why we call it Holy Communion.  We are born individually.  We wash ourselves alone.  But we eat and drink together gathered around the same family table.  And in the Lord’s Supper, the family table is something really special.  On one hand it is the altar that stands before God on which is laid the sacrifice of the Son whose suffering and death atones for the sins of the whole world.  At the same time it is the table around which the faithful gather to experience fellowship with God and all the rest of the family of faith.  At this table the Lord Jesus himself is both the host of the meal, the one who serves it, and he is the meal itself because he is truly present in the bread and wine, so that we dine both with him and on him; and in so doing we recognize him as both the Savior who takes away our sin and the head of the house to whom we owe love, respect, and honor.  And here, with the vertical aspect of our relationship with God restored, the Lord’s Supper adds the horizontal restoration of relationships, that is, between the people who join in the meal.  The same Christ whom I receive in myself for the forgiveness of sins is being received by everyone else at the table for their forgiveness.  How then can I deny my own forgiveness to or fellowship with any of them without denying what I have myself received?  It’s simply not possible.  If I have Christ and his forgiveness, so does that person next to me. We feast together on this meal of salvation, and through it we are reconciled to God though Christ and also reconciled to one another.

And finally, there is something decidedly forward looking about the Lord’s Supper.  The New Testament Scriptures frequently describes our ultimate reception into heaven as a feast of victory or as a magnificent wedding feast.  It’s going to be the grandest family reunion and celebration of all time – and it will last for all of time.  What happens each time that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper is that for a brief moment that heavenly feast we are all looking forward to intrudes upon us in the here and now giving us a veiled foretaste of what’s to come.  When we partake, we join all the saints in heaven above and still on earth below in sharing the salvation that Jesus gives to all of us through his body and blood sacrificed on the cross and raised again to give us life. This is why the Sacrament is truly the feast of our salvation.

And on that high point, we have come to the end of our review of the Small Catechism. I hope that you found it a helpful refresher, and that it will encourage you to look more deeply into some of the things we discussed over the past several weeks.  I also pray that through this study you have been better prepared to receive the Lord Jesus who comes to us now in his Word and Sacraments, and who will come ultimately in glory to receive us to himself.  To him be all our praise and honor forever.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!