The Purpose of the Lord's Supper
“The Purpose of the Lord’s Supper” E-100 #66 Luke 22; 1 Cor. 11:17-34
by Clancy Nixon
Church of the Holy Spirit
Ashburn, Virginia
March 7, 2010
I’ve just returned from the celebration of the life of Ginger’s daddy, John D Baumhauer. John D lived life to the fullest for 86 years, and people loved being around him. He smiled broadly; he opened his eyes wide in childlike wonder often; and he laughed loudly. He had learned from his faithful mother never to gossip or even say an unkind word about anyone. We talked about it, and the family agreed - he never did. John D loved people, he loved history and learning, and he loved the Lord Jesus. He often cried while in Church, overcome by the love he had received.
He was an avid sailor on Mobile bay. Ginger had the idea to give a gift to all his grandchildren before the visitation: boat shoes - Sperry topsiders - so that they would always remember their granddaddy and his love of sailing. Those boat shoes are a memento, a souvenir – they help us remember one we love. Most of you have some momento of a loved one that you keep in a shoe box, or a drawer somewhere – something that reminds you of your dad, your child, your friend. I wear a simple bone Ugandan cross around my neck as a reminder of how our friends there rescued us at our time of need. The cross is the chief symbol of our faith – a symbol that is an instrument of execution. It is a way of remembering Christ’s death for us.
The Eucharist is also a reminder for us of Christ’s death. At John D’s funeral service, we celebrated the Holy Communion, and all those who believe in Christ and are baptized were invited to receive. So Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, and non-denominational believers all streamed toward the Lord's Table and partook. It was an awesome picture of the unity of the body of Christ on earth. Together we remembered Christ’s death for us sinners, and we were reminded of the unity of the saints in heaven with the saints on earth.
In Luke 22:15, Jesus said to his apostles, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” I believe that even today, Jesus still eagerly desires to meet with you and me, to enter into you, so you will again experience union with him in his holy meal. Some of you have an eager passion for the Lord’s Supper, and that passion has drawn you into this holy fellowship at CHS rather than some other fellowship. For others, you do not have the same passion. I pray that today, God will ignite in you an eager passion for union with Christ through the Eucharist.
Beloved, most of us love the Eucharist, but we don't talk about it very much. This sacrament that we practice at CHS every Sunday is central to our worship. The Holy Communion is the very pinnacle of what it means to worship, yet it has become so bound up in doctrinal controversy about its meaning that it becomes an easy subject to avoid. I appreciate the importance of unity in mission across denominational lines, and unity in worship like I experienced in Mobile, Alabama. The evangelical habit of mind these days tends to run to avoid those subjects that divide Bible-believing Christians of different fellowships or denominations, preferring to major in those things that unite us. That habit of mind has the unfortunate consequence of causing us to miss some of the most sublime truths of our faith. Rather than avoid controversy for the sake of mission or unity, I suggest that we major in the majors, and minor in the minors. Surely the Eucharist is one of the majors! Let’s look today at what the Bible says about the Lord's Supper, and at how our Anglican tradition has interpreted those scriptures.
In our E-100 reading from Luke 21, we read how Jesus instituted what the Apostle Paul calls the Lord’s Supper, during what we call the Last Supper. Jesus celebrated the Passover feast with his inner circle of the twelve apostles on the night before he was arrested, tried, flogged and condemned to die. The Passover was the Jews’ annual commemoration of the exodus of the enslaved Hebrews from Egypt, as the Angel of death passed over the Hebrew homes that had smeared the blood of a lamb on the doorposts. The Passover feast was all about remembering what God had done for the Jewish people, how thousands of lambs were sacrificed, that God’s people might be set free from bondage. In the annual Passover fest, the Jews enact their sufferings in history by eating bitter herbs, and they enact their redemption by eating the Passover lamb in this meal filled with symbols. Jesus reinterpreted the Passover, and forever changed its meaning, at that Last Supper. He himself would be the sacrificial lamb that takes away the sins of the world.
Open your Bibles to Luke Chapter 22, verse 19 and 20 on page 1044 of your blue pew Bibles. Jesus “took bread, gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’” Verse 20: “In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’”
This is the first purpose of the Lord’s Supper: it’s a memorial feast. It is a regular reminder for Christians of Jesus’ sacrificial death for us, that we might be reconciled to God. Put your finger there in Luke 22, and turn with me to 1 Corinthians 11:25 and 26, page 1136. Here St. Paul repeats the same tradition of Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper, then he says, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” Beloved, at Eucharist we proclaim the Lord’s death just as much as his life. With Paul, we preach Christ crucified for our sins. The most universal symbol of Christians is the Cross – not the empty tomb. 1st Thessalonians 5:10 says, “Christ died for us, so that we may live together with him.”
We remember with our minds, and we also remember with our senses. We enact this meal ritually so that we get the symbols right. We hear the old, old story, and we sing of God’s glory. We see the picture of the unity of the church come together in table fellowship, and we see the local representative of the Apostles in our clergy. We taste the bread and the wine, and we are fed spiritually as well as materially by real food. We smell the incense of his presence. As our knees touch the carpet, and we reach up with the outstretched hands of a beggar, we touch the face of God. You and I have something called muscle memory – once you learn to ride a bicycle, you never forget! When you kneel, all the times you knelt in the past become a part of that present kneeling, as you remember with your body. We remember the Lord’s death until he comes – friends, the Eucharist is a reminder that Jesus is coming again!
The second purpose of the Eucharist is that it is to be a sign of the unity of the Church. St. Paul says this when discussing the Lord’s body in 1 Corinthians 10:16b and 17: “Is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” This “One Loaf” symbol is why we use one loaf rather than the many wafers here at CHS. The unity of the body of Christ we experienced at John D’s funeral Eucharist, as believers from every Christian tradition gathered round the Lord’s Table, is awesome. Sadly, the Eucharist has become a stumbling stone to Christian unity, as some denominations exclude true believers from other traditions from partaking, whether they call it “closed communion” or “close communion.” I believe that the ecumenical impulse is on target in this case, as we recognize that no denomination owns the Eucharist, but rather it is for all who believe and are baptized. The table you see here is not an Anglican table; it is the Lord’s Table! Amen? Let it be a sign for us of the unity of the invisible Church of true believers everywhere, in Africa and Asia and Europe and the Americas, in every denomination and no denomination, who have made Jesus their Savior and Lord. It is a sign for us of the communion of the saints – we are one with the saints who have gone on before us to glory, like John D, who celebrates with the saints and angels in heaven even as we celebrate.
When we worship here, we take part in the worship happening on the Lord’s Day all over the world, and for 2,000 years in Salvation History, and also in the worship of Heaven! Beloved, I ask you: Do you really believe that? Let the wonder of worship with the Angels sink in to your hearts. Angels are here with us today, as heaven comes to hearth, and earth partakes of Heavenly realms!
The third purpose of the Eucharist is that it is a sacrament, a means of grace, whereby we receive the Real Presence of the risen Christ, and all other benefits of his passion. The Catechism of the Prayer Book, which is something every Anglican believer should know, says this: “The benefits received by the faithful by partaking of the Lord’s Supper are the strengthening and refreshing of our souls, even as our bodies are strengthened and refreshed by the bread and wine.” Jesus said, “This is my body; this is my blood.” The Anglican way of reading and interpreting scripture, according to the Lambeth Conference of 1998, is that we read the Bible according to its plain meaning. The Lord said it is his body and blood, and so many of us believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Yes, we are that unsophisticated; we believe literally what Jesus said! This week in preparation, I read commentaries of highly sophisticated theology on the Lord’s Supper, so if your mind appreciates that sort of thing, I commend it to you. We call this sacrament Holy Communion because it is the surest form we know for you to experience union with Christ, to be swept up in His divine life.
I have many Bible believing friends who believe that The Real Presence of Christ is not in the bread and wine. You don't have to believe it to be an Anglican. Let me ask you this: Do you believe that God is everywhere? Omnipresent and all that? Then why is it hard to believe that Jesus is in the bread of Communion when he said, “This is my body?”
Now, about those “other benefits of his passion.” Jesus’ blood is efficacious for healing. I know of many who have received physical healing by partaking of the Lord’s Supper. One man I know was slain in the spirit when he touched the bread, and his cancer was instantly healed. The great preacher Charles Simeon of Cambridge, England, was spiritually healed. Every baptized student at Cambridge University was required to receive communion once per year in the late 1700’s. As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 11, so the catechism teaches that “It is required for those who come to the Lord’s Table to examine themselves to be sure that they repent of their sins, are steadfastly intending to lead a new life, have a living faith in God’s mercy through Christ, thankfully remember his death, and are loving and charitable to everyone.” Otherwise, Paul teaches at 1 Cor. 11:27 and following, the sacrament will not be to our benefit, but to our detriment. Young Charles Simeon had a crisis of conscience, and spent months spiritually preparing himself to receive Communion. He repented of his sins and found new life in Christ. Simeon went on to preach for forty years at Trinity Church in Cambridge, even though the wardens locked the pews for the first seven years of his ministry so that no one could sit to hear his messages. Simeon was credited with converting thousands of English men, many of whom went on to mission fields in Africa, including Uganda in the 1880’s.
And that is the fifth purpose of the Lord’s Supper – after we look back to what Jesus has done, we look forward to his coming again! There is a greater promise, and a greater future life with Christ – the wedding feast of the Lamb. In Luke 22:16, Jesus says, “I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” Jesus already looked beyond his imminent suffering, and he anticipated his reunion with them at his table in the Kingdom of Heaven finally come to fullness on the earth.
This magnificent banquet is described in Revelation 19:6-9: “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’” And he added, ‘These are the true words of God.’”
The Eucharist we share is a foretaste of the wedding feast of the lamb. It’s the closest thing I know to Heaven. I pray that you will have an increasing desire, a growing passion for Holy Communion with Christ, even as he eagerly desires to share himself with you. Amen.
