Eucharistic Attributes—We Prepare to Partake In Christ

Call to Worship

Happy Father’s Day everyone and Good Afternoon, welcome to the service of the Lord’s Day here at the Portland Rescue Mission on Burnside. My name is Caleb, some of you may recognize me from my weekly Wednesday night sermons. It truly is an honor to have this time now before you, not just to preach, but to engage in what the ancient church calls liturgy, from the Greek λειτουργίᾳ, meaning public service. That is, a service that invites us all to participate, not just some pastoral or priestly class, but a community of those “called out,” called by our relationship with Christ Jesus, mediator between God and man, and God himself, who took on our form, and sacrificed Himself for our sins according to the Scriptures. Now, let us approach the Word in the mindset of the Apostle Paul, whom, writing to the Philippians, says,

Phil. 2:17 … [we are] to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and liturgy/service (λειτουργίᾳ) of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.

So let us rejoice together with an exploration of Scripture, reading from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Scripture Reading

Old Testament

A reading from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. May God bless the reading of His word,

[The Book of _____, Chapter ____, Verse(s) __]

Genesis 14:18 “Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.”

Proverbs 9:4–5 “‘Whoever is naive, let him turn in here!’ To him who lacks understanding she says, ‘Come, eat of my food And drink of the wine I have mixed.’”

This is the Word of God.

New Testament

A reading from the New Testament, the Greek Bible, in the Apostle Paul’s Letters to the church,

[The Letter to the ________, Chapter ____, Verse __]

1 Corinthians 10:17 “Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.”

Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

This is the Word of God.

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Luke 24:27–35 (selections) “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. […Then] He went in to stay with them. When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. […] And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, […] , saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.” They began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of bread.”

This is the Word of God.

Prayer of Divine Invocation

The Lord be with you. And with your Spirit. Let us pray.

Almighty God, to You all hearts are open, all desires known, and from You no secrets are hid. We pray, by the power of the Holy Spirit that You will open the hearts of its hearers here assembled to receive Your holy gospel and write on their hearts Your holy law, even as You have promised. And, by the inspiration of that same Holy Spirit. may You cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, that, as community, brother and sisters in Christ, we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify Your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. In harmony, and in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, your people say, Amen.

Sermon

This is the fourth and final sermon in our series on the the Blessed Sacrament—called Eucharist, Lord’s Supper, Communion, or simply, the bread and wine. I hope that over the last three weeks, there has been some illumination—not only in what the bread and wine represent, but in what they actually do. I speak and preach of a real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but only in presence, not by what particular means. One can hold to a physical, spiritual, or a mixed view of the means of Christ’s presence, but as a church, from the ancients, we must hold that something happens, sacramentally uniting us to God through Christ. That the elements are not just symbols or mere remembrances of Christ’s death, but that they are an active in application and seal by a sacred event through which God works in and through redemptive history alone.

I hope today before we partake in the Lord’s table of bread and wine—as many of you have before—hearts, minds, and souls can be transformed by a deep and proper understanding of the Eucharist through the preaching of the Word—in Scripture and the testimony of the saints of the first four centuries.

Bread as Body and Sacrament

In the first sermon we spoke of how Christ instituted the Eucharist by his blessing of the bread and what Sacrament means for us. That the Lord, on the night he was betrayed, said “This is my body given for you.” We find that the once universal God, is present and active in the particular. He was personal, and is with us at all times, but these instruments—as the Reformers understood them as “means of grace”—are the particular divinely-ordained method of receiving said grace. He is evermore and sacramentally present in baptism and the Eucharist, and instilled in us through His Word. For he could not be God, i.e., be universal, either in relation to us or in general, had it not been for His gifting of us particular bodies and His humbling to become particular too, to take on the form of human body and have that body given for us. God is universal, but he is bread. Given to you, for you, in love.

And on the meaning of sacrament, stemming from the Latin sacramentum, and originally the Greek μυστήριον (mystery), means “a truth undiscoverable except by revelation, long hid, now made manifest.” That is, the incomprehensible is made manifest, which is inaccessible by our works alone, is true nonetheless by divine revelation. Now, we hold plenty of mysteries in Scripture: the resurrection of the body, virgin birth, water turned wine, shall we not also hold to the testimony of the ancient church that the Words of Institution are not merely symbolic, in that they differ both from Christ’s metaphoric language and his literal. Not always recognizable by our sinfulness, but true in such that it penetrates our sinful hearts.

One person we, as the church universal, hold in high regards is the Church Father St. Augustine, who, defined what constituted those given sacraments—baptism and the Eucharist. He used the terms signa (sign) and res (thing signified). On how the bread can truly be Christ’s body, he answers “My friends, these realities are called sacraments because in them one thing is seen, while another is grasped.” Such that in baptism the water symbolizes our spiritual rebirth into the church as body of Christ. And such that the blessed (consecrated) bread symbolizes, as members of Christ’s body baptized, a partaking of and in Christ’s body. As we read from St. Paul, “The bread is one body, and we, though many, are one body.” Let us return later to this idea of the bread being applied and sealed to us in the Eucharist.

Our reading from Genesis today reaffirms our teaching against the Marcionite tribe that wanted to separate the Old Testament and New Testament God into gods—evil and good. Against this, we affirm that Christ, although instituting the Eucharist for us on that fateful night, was partaken of (as Word) by the many Old Testament saints in their blessing of bread and wine. Now for us, Christ came so that he could perfect our body in union with His.

Likewise, in the priest Melchizedek, we see the sacrament of the sacrifice of the Lord prefigured, that that Melchizedek portrayed a type of Christ, the order proceeds first from the sacrifice and then descends to Melchizedek, a priest of the most high God, because he offered bread, because he blessed Abraham. This comes into final fruition when the author of Hebrews writes, Hebrews 7:17 “For it is attested of Him, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”” For who is more a priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered sacrifice to God the Father and offered the very same thing that Melchizedek had offered, bread and wine, that is, actually, his body and blood.

Water, Blood, and Healing

In our second sermon we spoke of the healing effects of water in the Old Testament, Christ’s fulfillment of the law, and the water becoming blood, in Him, on the Cross so that we could be saved. In the Old Testament, then, we have water as the means of cleansing, renewal, and covenant preparation—seen in the parting of the Red Sea, the purification rites, and the healings of men. But in Christ, from his first miracle in Cana of turning water into wine, this water is transformed: no longer merely a sign of healing, it becomes the wine of the covenant—His blood poured out for many. The wine represents, then, while still wine (signa), God’s blood fulfilled through covenant (res) from the days of Moses to the cup we bless today.

We traced how the covenant in Exodus was sealed with blood and the prefiguring of Christ as the Paschal lamb slain for us. That Christ fulfills this in His sacrifice, and how the Eucharistic cup is not just symbolic but sacramental, a participation in the very blood of Christ. In drinking from it, we are bound not only to Him but to each other—one body, one church. Unlike the water, this blood does not merely cleanse but binds via covenant, redeems via sacrifice, and makes real our communion with God and each other via Christ.

In our reading on Proverbs today, whoever is naive is told come to the table and eat bread and mixed wine. They do so to gain understanding. In fact, in many churches, the wine is mixed with water to signify Christ’s baptism and death. Let us partake of the table as naive men and be healed. But also, take our reading of the Road to Emmaus, where the people are said to have seen and understood Christ as fulfillment of the biblical Messiah only after having broken bread with Him. We not only become healed, but become understanding, and in partaking of Christ himself, partake of the divine nature itself. We will return to this too.

Reverence of the Meal

Brothers and sisters, as we continue reflecting on the meaning and mystery of the Eucharist, we must not overlook the weightiness of how we come to the Lord’s Table. The Apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the church in Corinth that those who eat and drink without discerning the body eat and drink judgment upon themselves. This is not a meal to be approached lightly or casually. It is not about satisfying hunger, habit, or even personal devotion alone—but about recognizing the presence of Christ in the bread and the cup, and the holiness of the act itself.

On the usefulness of the physical bread, St. Cyril of Jerusalem attests as that, “after the invocation of the Holy Ghost the bread of the Eucharist is no longer bread, but the body of Christ.” Best understood, this is to say that the bread, while still existing in form and substance, no longer functions to feed the stomach, but the soul. In the Augustinian form, the bread is seen but no longer serves its earthly function, for the body is grasped and ever-reformed.

To the Corinthians, then, Paul warns that many come full and many come hungry, many abuse the elements for carnal satisfaction, but the bread and wine of Christ is meant to fulfill in a deeper way. When we submit to Scripture and the attestation of the early church, we resign ourselves to that Christ present and efficacious sacramentally through the meal present at the table. One metaphor, though not perfect, is that the bread and wine become like a heated rod of iron, still iron in its appearance, but emanating from it (grasping from it), something much more—heat and energy. As for us, in the elements, Christ still exists alongside the bread and wine, but only insofar that it is no longer useful to us as food, but as spiritual nourishment.

In this sacrament, we are invited not only to remember Christ but to receive Him. The body and blood of the Lord are not abstractions—they are Christ’s self-gift to us, and they demand a fitting response. This means examining ourselves, seeking reconciliation with others, and humbling ourselves before God. One case study is that verse by Paul to the Corinthian church that 1 Corinthians 11:30 “For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep [die].” Something occurs then in the Eucharist such that it is attested in Scripture that men fell ill and died for partaking unworthily. But do not fret or worry or believe you are unworthy, all baptized believers are called forth, with a right frame of mind—given in today’s Word—such that your sins will be wholly expiated by Christ’s work alone.

To partake in an unworthy manner is to treat lightly what God has made holy. But to receive with faith and reverence is to be renewed—to be shaped more deeply into the one body of Christ, bound together by grace and called into lives of holy love. Let us then approach the Table not only with gratitude but with awe, for Christ is truly present—and He meets us here.

The Medicinal Eucharist

In the Eucharist, we do not come merely to remember Christ’s death—we come to be healed by His whole life, whole ministry, and fulfillment of the covenant in true blood. The early Church did not hesitate to call this sacrament medicine, and for good reason. As Ignatius of Antioch writes, the Eucharist is “the medicine of immortality, and the antidote of death.” In a world where sin is sickness and death a looming curse, Christ offers Himself not only as a sacrifice once on the cross, but as a remedy now—ministered through bread and wine. His body and blood are not distant artifacts but present grace, particular divinely-ordained means for us to receive Him, as promised in accordance with Scripture. As it is written in the Psalms, Psalm 104:15 “wine makes man’s heart glad, So that he may make his face glisten with oil, And food sustains man’s heart.” When we eat and drink in faith, we receive that healing Word in tangible form, our hearts are made glad and hearts sustained by love incarnate.

The Church Fathers often described the Eucharist as restoring what sin had wounded. Augustine reminds us that the sacrament is food for the journey (sanctification), given to strengthen the weak and raise the fallen. Basil the Great writes that “we are united with His body and His Spirit” through it, and such union is not symbolic—it is curative. This is no common bread, but heaven’s balm, restoring our communion with God and fortifying us against the final enemy. As Jesus Himself says: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:54).

Sacrifice

It is true that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was once and for all—Hebrews 10:14 “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” The ancient church never believed in a repeated crucifixion, or some fantasy that Christ is re-sacrificed. But in the Eucharist, that once-for-all sacrifice is made present to us. It is not re-enacted but re-presented, as its power and benefits are applied afresh to the faithful. As the Lutheran Martin Chemnitz beautifully puts it: “The fathers call the body and blood of the Lord which are present in the Supper a saving sacrifice… because that sacrifice which was once offered on the cross for our redemption and for the sins of the whole world—the body and blood of the Lord—is present, is dispensed, offered, and taken in the Lord’s Supper, so that the power and efficacy of this offering… is applied and sealed individually to all who receive it in faith.”

We read today of us as one body, sealed in blood, from the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians. Such that the Supper is not mere memorial; but it is communion in that very body and blood. And so we speak of it rightly as a sacrificial meal—not because we sacrifice again, but because the sacrifice made once is brought near and pressed into our hearts by grace. Just as the Passover meal allowed Israel to participate in their deliverance, so the Supper draws us into the deliverance of the Lamb who was slain. Here, the altar and the table meet. Here, we eat what was offered—Christ Himself—and are marked again as God’s redeemed.

So if Christ’s sacrifice is promised to be once-and-for-all, how can we participate in sacrifice in the Eucharist. The better question asked is: what is our response to grace? What do we now offer, having received said grace? Paul tells us in Romans 12:1, “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Not a dead offering, not just a symbolic gesture—but our very lives, our whole selves, poured out in active devotion. This is the only fitting response to a Savior who gave His body and blood for us. And as such Christ is offered spiritually for us, in true access to His body and blood.

And Paul echoes this again in Philippians 2:17, where he writes, “But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service (liturgy) of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.” Here, the apostle doesn’t just describe martyrdom; he offers his daily ministry and suffering as part of a shared sacrificial life with the community. To follow Christ is to become eucharistic ourselves—to be broken and poured out in love; to be a sacrifice, having been crucified with Christ such that we no longer live, but He lives in us; and to be in eternal servitude. He is made cup so that we may become cup and love as he loved, serve as he served.

Thus, in the following of Christ, St. Gregory Nazianzen once wrote: “Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become divine for His sake, since He became man for ours. He took upon Himself the worst, that He might give us the best. He became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. He took the form of a servant, that we might regain liberty. He came down, that we might be lifted up.”

So when we come to the Table, we do not come to consume only—we come to be transformed, to be like Christ. To take the sacrament rightly is to become sacrificial ourselves: to love without counting the cost, to live not for ourselves but for Him who died and rose again on our behalf. This is our spiritual worship, our holy liturgy (service), our true communion with Christ.

Conclusion

And so, beloved, as we close this series, let us return to the center—not to a theological system or a philosophical model, but to Christ Himself. The Eucharist is not a thought experiment. It is not a metaphor we stretch until it snaps. It is the reality of Christ’s presence among us, given in the form He promised: bread and wine. We do not say how. We do not pry into what St. Basil calls the “ineffable mystery.” But with him, with Augustine, and with the early Church, we affirm this much: that “after the invocation, the bread is no longer common bread, but the body of Christ”; that “having been sanctified by the word of God, [it] is the Body of Christ,” and that in receiving it, we receive Him.

This presence is not something we conjure; it is something we are met by. Christ comes to us, hidden yet revealed, not to be dissected but to be received and trusted. And in it, results in full absolution and a reapplication of baptismal grace—not because the sacrament repeats Christ’s work, but because it gives again its benefits, now pressed into the heart. That grace and forgiveness of sin in the water is transformed into the sacrifice of blood given in the wine, such that as Christ performed the miracle of water to wine, we are renewed and re-established in our baptism by the cup, and made right with the church by the bread.

This is why, as the Westminster Catechism beautifully states, “The Lord’s Supper testifies to us, that we have a full pardon of all sin by the only sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which He Himself has once accomplished on the cross; and, that we by the Holy Ghost are ingrafted into Christ.” No human works need apply, what Christ accomplished once, He now applies. What He sealed in blood, He now seals in wine. And it is this sealing—not just in thought but in Spirit—that strengthens us to walk anew. Not as isolated believers, but as one body, knit together by one bread. In this mystery, God does not bypass your body, your weakness, your need—He meets you in it by His becoming man and our becoming divine.

We end now today on the essence of the gospel in the Christian tradition: this union with Christ. We’ve spoken of recognizing Christ—as those lost souls on the Road to Emmaus—being ingrafted into Christ, and partaking in that Messiah—Emmanuel (God with us), such that our fallenness is restored and reconciled with our Creator. This irresistible truth, open to all who are faithful in Christ Jesus, is described by Peter in his letters to the church universal, 2 Pet. 1:4 “He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.” His promises of covenant were fulfilled in Christ’s spilling of blood in accordance with Scripture when he says, “It is finished!” so that we could be fulfilled in a redefinition of human nature as tied intrinsically to the divine God through the fully human and fully divine Son Jesus.

So come not with perfect understanding, but with faith. Come not because you deserve Him, but because He desires you and He is effectual, not Us. Come, take, eat—and be made whole, united with Christ. As Charles Spurgeon referred to it, “the moment we are nearest to heaven [is when] we spend those moments at the Lord’s table.” Christ came to heal our human nature so that we may be reconciled with the divine. So let us partake of Him, of divinity, in service (λειτουργίᾳ) from all of us, and experience of the fullness of that Sacrament fulfilled in Christ’s sacrifice and applied and sealed in the Lord’s Blessed Sacrament. An experience offered to all in Him and through Him alone.

In summary, the Eucharist is presented as a sacred mystery that is sacrificial, healing, covenantal, communal, and transformative—re-presenting Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice, applying the benefits of His death and resurrection, sealing his promise of our reconciliation, uniting believers to His body, and calling them to become living sacrifices in joyful, reverent participation. Amen.

Lord’s Prayer and Absolution

Now let us end in community by praying the Lord’s prayer, receiving absolution in the embolism, and leaving blessed,

Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

Almighty God we have forsaken you in thought, word, and deed. Have mercy on us, forgive us all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. As we prepare ourselves for the partaking of Your Son, let our hearts be opened to the mystery of Your indwelling in us.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. In the name of the Father, who creates, and of the Son, who redeems, and of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies and purifies us before You, Amen.

The Blessed Sacrament—The Eucharist

Behold the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lord.

For the bread:

The bread and wine being thus set apart by prayer and thanksgiving, the minister is to take the bread, and break it, in the view of the people, saying:

On the night he was betrayed, the Lord took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it, gave it to His disciples, as I, ministering in His name, give this bread to you, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me… [For] I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

For the wine (or mustum):

After having given the bread, he shall take the cup, and say:

In the same manner, He also took the cup, and having given thanks as has been done in His name, He gave it to the disciples, saving, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Drink from it, all of you.”

Invite up to partake in consecrated bread and wine (or mustum), encourage them to take it after saying:

All of those who are baptized believers, worthily participating, I invite you to the table to receive the elements of true body and true blood of Christ—in the bread and the cup. When you approach the altar, spread your hands out with your left hand acting as a throne for your right. If you feel inclined, bow your head. I ask that when we partake, we partake together, so please return to your seat after having received the host, and wait for further instruction such that when we eat and drink, we eat and drink as one body, sealed in the one-for-all bloody offering of Christ’s body. Let our sacrifice, in remembrance of his one-for-all sacrifice, honor Him. Now please come to the table, form a line to be blessed:

We give thanks like this: First, regarding the cup:

We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine your child David, whom you made known to us through your child Jesus—yours is the glory forever.

And regarding the broken bread:

Just as this broken bread was scattered over the hills and, coming together, became one, may your community likewise come together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom—for yours are the power and the glory through Jesus Christ forever.

We thank you, our Father, for life and knowledge, which you made known to us through your child Jesus—yours is the glory forever.

Once all have sat down:

And after being filled, we give thanks as follows:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of Your Son and our Savior Jesus Christ: and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the body of Your Son, and heirs of Your eternal Kingdom. And now, Father, send us out into the Amen.

Apostles’ Creed

Now, after having partaken the very bread and blood of Christ, let us read from the Apostles’ Creed. This creed is both informative and performative, both educational and sacramental. It is a summary of Christian teaching as well as a solemn pledge of allegiance. When we are defined as Christianas as those, who, by our tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, we turn to the words of the church universal, ancient and eternal. I invite now David Rivera to come and read the words of our fathers,

Benediction

Now as you walk out tonight, wherever that may be, count yourself blessed before the Lord,

Here is what we say, church, All our problems, our fears and the devil’s works, we send to the cross of Christ. And all of our hopes, we set on the Risen Christ. From the Book of Hebrews,

Hebrews 13:20–21 “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever… And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.

Go in peace to love and serve our Risen Lord!