When you eat the bread of the Lord’s Supper and drink the wine (or in our
church, grape juice), Jesus Christ gives himself to you. You receive him. I say
this quite literally. Jesus Christ is risen. He is alive. You receive him in the
Supper. I am not saying that the bread physically becomes his body or the juice
his blood. The bread remains bread. The juice or wine remains what it is. At the
same time, the Lord’s Supper is no bare memorial. Certainly as we eat and drink
we do so in remembrance of Jesus. But more is happening than just what we do.
God is doing something too. Jesus gave us the Supper as a way to give himself to
us, not as an elaborate object lesson.
Pay close attention to how you use the words literal, physical, and spiritual.
If you think physical and literal mean the same thing while spiritual is the
opposite of literal, you’re mistaken. Literal means “adhering to fact or to the
ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression … free from
exaggeration or embellishment” [Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary,
Eleventh Edition]. A literal truth may be either physical or spiritual. When I
say that in the Supper Christians receive Christ, I am making a statement that
is spiritually and literally true. When you eat and drink, Jesus gives himself
to you. You receive him and with him all the blessings and benefits he gives his
people. No wonder Christians have nicknamed the bread “the bread of life” and
the cup “the cup of salvation.”
This is the belief of the Presbyterian Church, and I hope it is not only your
belief but also your experience. Too often, I fear, most of us simply go through
the motions. The Lord’s Supper is something we do on the first Sunday of each
month plus special holy days. We do it because that’s what we do … but … do you
anticipate it? Is it special? Is it near the center of your life as a Christian?
Often Christians in churches that believe in the literal and physical presence
of Christ in the elements find tremendous significance and strength in the
Supper. We should too, because although we do not imagine that when we receive
the bread, for example, that we are chewing Christ with our teeth, nevertheless,
he gives himself to us and we are joined to him in the eating of the bread.
I grew up Baptist, and one of the main factors in my becoming Presbyterian was
the Lord’s Supper. All I had known before was that the Lord’s Supper is
something we do. We do it right when we think about Jesus and remember him. I
remember one emotion, sorrow—sorrow over Jesus’ sufferings and for my sins.
That’s important, but other emotions should come into our celebration of the
Supper too. What about joy? Joy because the living Christ is present with us.
What emotions do you suppose the disciples in Emmaus felt when they finally
recognized Jesus? I remember only one temporal reference: We looked back to the
cross. Now I know we should also look to both the present, where Christ is with
us, and to the future and the coming of his kingdom, which this meal
anticipates. Most importantly, however, I came to realize that the Lord’s Supper
is less about what we do and more about what God does. I like the Presbyterian
view because we recognize Christ’s own work in the sacrament (he gives himself
to us) without trying to explain it physically or metaphysically.
As we consider our scripture reading—the walk to Emmaus, always a favorite—ask
yourself, “Why does Luke tell us this story?” Two reasons, I think. First,
because it happened. It was an exciting, dramatic encounter with the risen Jesus
that found its way into scripture because Christians loved to tell it and hear
it. There is another reason, however (I suspect). Think of how few accounts we
have of what Jesus did between his resurrection and ascension. A lot happened
that we do not know about. So why this one? Why was it important enough to tell
in such detail? My hunch is, because this experience is a paradigm for all
Christians. Their experience is our experience. Look what Jesus does. He comes
alongside them. He finds them. That is Christian experience today. We go about
our normal business, and somehow God steps in and changes the agenda.
Once alongside them, Jesus explains the scriptures to them. We still believe the
Holy Spirit is important in our encounter with scripture. You can read scripture
a lot of ways. You can read it to learn about ancient customs. You can read it
as a case study in social class struggle or something like that. But Christians
know scripture has greater depth than those kinds of readings. Scripture is a
place our risen Lord meets us. When the disciples in Emmaus remark how their
hearts burned within them as Jesus explained the scriptures to them, I know what
they are talking about. I have felt that burning too while reading and studying
scripture. Not all the time. Not even most of the time. But sometimes, when God
is dealing with me in a particular way and I get excited about what I am reading
and it all starts to come together and make sense, I know that feeling. If you
do not, then please do not worry about it—unless the most likely reason is that
you never read the Bible. God works in different ways with us, but he speaks to
us through scripture.
The other thing Jesus does is make himself known to them in the breaking of the
bread. Notice how their experience has become the pattern for Christian worship,
which centers around the Word and the sacraments. When he blesses the bread,
breaks it, and gives it to them, their eyes are opened and they recognize him.
That’s what we should do, recognize his presence with us. Open our eyes in faith
to see that he gives himself to us.
Jesus gave us the Supper to unite us to himself and to other believers.
Unfortunately, we Christians have taken this gift and abused it. I would like
now to consider two problems Christians have created around the Supper and ways
we can avoid them in our own practice of it.
1. We have made mystery a problem. The heart of our faith is Jesus Christ,
especially his cross and resurrection. We know his death was for us, but how?
How does it help us? Christianity has never been willing to settle for just one
answer, in part because we find several good answers in the New Testament. His
death benefits us by giving us an example of obedience to God despite suffering.
It benefits us because he gave his life as a ransom for us. It benefits us
because he took the punishment that should have been ours. It benefits us
because on the cross he conquered sin and death. So many ways to look at it, but
don’t miss the one Jesus himself gave us. When Jesus wanted to explain what his
death was about, he did not give his disciples a theory or a word picture. He
gave them a meal. He celebrated the Passover with them. Passover commemorated
how God saved his people from slavery in Egypt. It also promised God’s continued
faithfulness to his people and salvation in the future. From this meal Jesus
took bread and wine. He said, “This is my body. This is my blood.” Everything
the Exodus and Passover meant to his disciples (who were all Jews, as he was),
his death would mean—and more.
The point is: Jesus did not merely give us an idea. He gave us a meal. Tied up
in it are ideas, emotions, and physical actions. The Supper lets us love God
with our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Through our eyes, our ears, our hands,
our taste buds, even our sense of smell, the death of Jesus becomes real for us.
We know it not merely as an historical fact but also we know that it was for us.
And he gives himself to us.
There is mystery here. How does he give himself to us? How are we united with
him through the simple act of eating and drinking? For some reason, people tend
to think every mystery is a problem to be unraveled. On one hand, some
Christians take Jesus’ words not only literally but also physically. “This is my
body,” Jesus said, so they say that the bread becomes his body, even though it
still looks and tastes like bread. Then they have to find ways to explain how
the bread becomes his body and why it still tastes like bread. Those of you from
a Catholic background are familiar with this. My question is: Why would Christ
have to be physically present in the bread and wine to be really present? Why
not just accept that he gives himself to us in the Supper and trust him to do
it, without trying to explain how he does it?
On the other hand, some Christians go so far the other way that they make the
Supper a bare memorial. It is merely something we do, they say, and although
Christ is always present when his people worship, we do not receive him in the
Supper. That solves the mystery by denying it. There is no mystery if the Supper
is nothing more than a ritual we perform. My question is: Isn’t this a bit too
rationalistic? What is wrong with a bit of mystery? Why not admit that God works
in ways we cannot explain to our own satisfaction? Why separate Jesus from the
meal he gave us?
The first problem, then, is that we want to remove the mystery from the Lord’s
Supper. My solution is to accept the mystery. Believe that Christ gives himself
to us. Celebrate the Supper with that expectation. Trust him to do it. And do
not feel you have to explain how he does it.
2. The second problem is that we let different understandings of the Lord’s
Supper divide us. Jesus gave us this meal as a sign and expression of our unity
as his disciples. Tragically, nothing in the history of the church has been more
divisive. During the Protestant Reformation, Protestants took issue with
Catholic teaching about the Lord’s Supper. Their idea was to cut away all the
traditions of the church and return to scripture for a clear sense of what Jesus
intended the Supper to be. Unfortunately, when they tried that, they disagreed
among themselves. The reason was, scripture never explains the Supper in a
systematic way. It recalls Jesus’ institution of the Supper, gives glimpses at
the practices of the early church, and contains Paul’s teaching about it; but
nothing systematic that says, “Do it like this. Here is how it works.”
Christians today have different understandings of the Lord’s Supper. That is
probably inevitable. But we should not let them divide us. We should not make
the meal Jesus gave us a mark of division. That is why I like the way our church
invites all Christians to the Table. We could have a Baptist with us and a
Catholic, and all of us could join together in the celebration of the Lord’s
Supper. The Baptist may believe the Supper is a memorial, something we do, and
not expect to actually receive Christ in it. The Catholic Church does not
encourage Catholics to partake of the Eucharist in Protestant churches, but I
have known many Catholics to do so. The Catholic Church would not consider our
bread and juice to be the body and blood of Christ, but perhaps a Catholic
joining us in the Supper might. And here is the thing: the Presbyterians, the
Baptists, the Catholics, even Christians who don’t really know much about the
Lord’s Supper or pretend to understand it at all—all of them would receive
Christ in the Supper.
This is a very important truth about Christianity that you need to get hold of,
and it may be the most important thing you get from this sermon: God’s work does
not depend on our ability to define it with doctrine. Just because you do not
understand something, or because you are wrong about it, does not limit God. For
example, Jesus’ death saves you, even if you cannot articulate a doctrine of
atonement. Another example, closer to our topic: When I was a Baptist,
celebrating the Lord’s Supper, Jesus gave himself to me in the Supper. I did not
realize it. I did not expect it. But he did. I thought I was obeying him by
remembering his death and commemorating it with the Supper. And I was. I had no
idea he was doing something too. But he was.
Do not imagine that God only works in the Lord’s Supper in those churches that
have a perfectly correct understanding of it. Do not imagine that he is present
only in those churches with the right form of government or the right style of
worship. Too often Christians have made that error. In the aftermath of the
Reformation, Lutherans thought the Reformed churches who followed Calvin were
wrong about the Supper, so Christ was not in their Supper. We Reformed
Christians said the same thing about the Catholics, who said the same thing
about us. Thankfully we have come a long way since then, though not as far as we
need to. I say that Christians in the Catholic Churches this morning are
receiving Christ in the bread and wine. So are Christians in the Baptist
Churches, and the Methodist and the Lutheran and the Episcopal and the
Pentecostal and the Presbyterian. We will too. We Christians may not agree about
what precisely the Supper is or how it works, but we all believe in Jesus and we
are all trying to obey him. He gave this meal to all of us. He will give himself
to all of us in it—even if we do not expect him to or if we are wrong about how
he does it. We should not, therefore, let our differences over the Supper divide
us.
Now … enough talk. Let’s get to the Table! Christ is risen. He is here. He is
ready to give himself to us in this meal. Let us prepare to give ourselves to
him as well. Amen.