CRW: Communion
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We’ve arrived at Communion.
We’ve heard God’s Call,
we’ve confessed our sins to him,
we’ve been chopped up by His word, consecrated as living sacrifices of worship and obedience before God,
And we’ve arrived at Communion.
Communion and Commissioning (our last C), bleed into each other quite a bit.
And that’s because at its heart, communion is a feast.
It’s a literal feast as we eat bread and drink wine, but it’s also a type, a prefiguring, an appetizer of the grand wedding supper of the Lamb that we will eat in glory with all the church one day.
But it’s not just a feast. It’s not just any other meal.
It’s also a sacrament.
Have you ever wondered what (if anything) is actually happening in the Lord’s Supper?
Are we merely eating and drinking?
Or is there something happening that is unique and distinct?
Is there something happening to us?
What is a Sacrament?
What is a Sacrament?
WSC 92 “A sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ[a]; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers”
2 of em:
19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
26 Now while they were eating Jesus took bread and, after giving thanks, he broke it, and giving it to the disciples, he said, “Take, eat, this is my body.” 27 And after taking the cup and giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
The Word of God is the operative element.
A letter with a seal. A seal verifies the sender, but the words inside are important
A Visible Word
Baptism has a perpetual benefit to us.
The Lord’s Supper is a perpetual but in a fresh way every week.
We need our faith to be strengthened.
24 Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe! Help my unbelief.”
It is not that the gift of the Holy Spirit is insufficient for our faith, but rather that the sacraments are the normative WAY that the Holy Spirit strengthens and confirms our faith in us.
“In the Spirit’s absence the sacraments can do no more for the mind than the sun’s light can do for the blind, or a resonate voice for ears that are deaf” - Calvin
The Reformed View
The Reformed View
Why do we need a reformed view?
Because we need a biblical view.
“The Question of the Eucharist is one of the most important belonging to the history of religion. It may be regarded indeed as in some sense central to the whole Christian system. For Christianity is grounded in the living union of the believer with the person of Christ; and this great fact is emphatically concentrated in the mystery of the Lord’s Supper; which has always been clothed on this account, to the consciousness of the Church, with a character of sanctity and solemnity, surpassing that of any other Christian institution.” - Nevin
Eucharist
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
Memorial and Thanksgiving
10 On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the Lord your God.”
1 Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Mystery
Two things to hold in tension:
Christ is in heaven.
This is my body
Belgic on the Supper:
to represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacrament in our hands and eat and drink it with our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life,
the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls.
The hand and mouth of our souls
“[The Reformed position] allows the presence of Christ’s person in the sacrament, including even his flesh and blood, so far as the actual participation of the believer is concerned … A real presence, in opposition to the notion that Christ’s flesh and blood are not made present to the communicant in any way. A spiritual real presence, in opposition to the idea that Christ’s body is in the elements in a local or corporal manner. Not real simply, and not spiritual simply; but real, and yet spiritual at the same time. The body of Christ is in heaven, the believer on earth; but by the power of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless, the obstacle of such vast local distance is fully overcome, so that in the sacramental act, while the outward symbols are received in an outward way, the very body and blood of Christ are at the same time inwardly and supernaturally communicated to the worthy receiver, for the real nourishment of his new life. Not that the material particles of Christ’s body are supposed to be carried over, by this supernatural process, into the believer’s person. The communion is spiritual, not material. It is a participation of the Saviour’s life.” - Nevin
“King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood.
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heav’nly food.”
Our belief in the supper is a sort of inaugurated eschatology.
Jesus is in heaven.
New Jerusalem descends twice
And what I mean by that is that it points to the certified down payment of the kingdom of heaven.
Earnest Money
An encouragement for the person that feels nothing:
This is a process, not a light switch.
Part of why it is pretty important to tackle the question of who can come:
Who can come? (Baptismal Communion)
Who can come? (Baptismal Communion)
Circumcision
Old Testament Washings (Baptisms)
1 Now I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
Important because
8 So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. “Go, worship Yahweh your God,” Pharaoh said. “But exactly who will be going?” 9 Moses replied, “We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds because we must hold Yahweh’s festival.” 10 He said to them, “May Yahweh be with you if I ever let you and your families go! Look out—you are planning evil. 11 No, only the men may go and worship Yahweh, for that is what you have been asking for.” And they were driven from Pharaoh’s presence.
and
3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household. 4 If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each person will eat.
If anyone ever asks you where there are infant baptisms in the scriptures you can start here.
It’s also where we see paedocommunion.
Historical scope.
misunderstanding of 1st corinthians and the nature of the eucharist itself.
1st cor 11 must be interpreted in light of 10
Jesus says let the little children come to me.
And to Peter, feed my lambs.
“Daddy am I a lamb?”
So if this is a meal that
Posture at the feast
Posture at the feast
The regular eating of the supper puts us in a spot of continual reminder of our need for Christ and Him alone as our source of life.
For you if you’ve been baptized.
If you have unrepentant sin or animosity you are harboring for a brother or sister in Christ you ought not to eat until you’ve reconciled.
But that’s what our liturgy funnel is for.
2 potential errors remain:
I’m not good enough.
I don’t understand enough.
I’m not good enough:
“For if we allege as pretext for not coming to the Supper, that we are still weak in faith or in integrity of life, it is as if a man excuse himself from taking medicine because he is sick. This then is how the frailty of the faith which we feel in our heart, and the imperfections which persist in our life, ought to incite us to come to the Supper, as to a remedy designed to correct them.”
Calvin, Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper
Keep confession in confession
I don’t understand enough:
“Christ’s body, given for you.”
“The blood of Christ, shed for the taking away of your sins”
Take this meal with joy!
It is a victory meal.
It is a life giving meal.
35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never be hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty again.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him—this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you are not able to do anything.
It is an equipping meal.
By this meal your soul is nourished for abiding in Christ.
You can bear fruit again.
You are ready for your missional task.
