1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock,
and our Redeemer. Amen. Today we’re going to look at what it means
for us as Christians to eat and partake of the body and blood of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ and why it’s important to receive the sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper regularly. The message is
entitled, “The Lord’s Supper We
Celebrate,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
While
still a seminary student, Charles Varsogea told this story, “When I was young, I often spent time at my
grandmother’s house. She grew grapes,
and every time I visited her, I would taste them to see if they were ripe
yet. I could never seem to figure out
that they were only good to eat in the fall, and so all summer I would run to
the house with my teeth on edge. I would
sit down at the kitchen table and ask my grandma to help me get rid of the
taste. Her answer to my trouble was
always the same. She would give me a
glass of grape juice. It was sweet and
took care of the sour grape taste without conflicting with it. Our Heavenly Father offers us a similar kind
of cure. When we have been “eating sour
grapes” and want to be forgiven, He invites us to His table where we receive
the sweet wine of the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Eucharist. Christ’s body and blood obliterates the
sourness of our sin, and we are refreshed and renewed. We are freed from the bitterness that sin
would bring us if we could not hope in God’s forgiveness.”
3.
Some
Christians understand the Lord’s Supper in the same way they understand Holy
Baptism--as something we do in obedience to God, either to earn more of His
favor or to avoid His displeasure. They
may also see Communion as a “memorial meal,” a time to remember Jesus’ death
and suffering for us in the same way we remember a loved one as we look through
a favorite photo album. Lawyers know how
carefully they must prepare a client’s last will and testament. Any ambiguous words in the document can throw
an estate valued at millions of dollars into the wrong hands. When our blessed Lord Jesus left us His last
will and testament, He used clear and unambiguous words. Listen to what Matt. 26:26-28 says, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread,
gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat,
this is My body.” Then He took the cup,
gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the covenant, which is
poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” “This is My body,” Jesus said. “This
is My blood.” Christ’s words and
very clear. We don’t understand how this
can be, but because we don’t want to change the words our Lord used in His last
will and testament, we accept what He has said.
4.
Based
on the words of institution alone, we can conclude that the Lord’s Supper
involves much more than a memorial meal.
As we receive the Holy Supper with our brothers and sisters in the
faith, Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11:26, “We
proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
We remember His suffering, death, and resurrection for us. We recall His perfect work of redemption that
makes it possible for God to declare us righteous in Christ. In that sense, Holy Communion is a memorial
meal. But, it’s so much more than
this. Listen to Luther’s answer to the
Question, “What is the Sacrament of the
Altar?” It is the true body and blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself
for us Christians to eat and to drink.” Luther
goes on to spell out the benefits we receive in Holy Communion, “These words, Given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of sins, show us that in the Sacrament forgiveness of sins, life,
and salvation are give us through these words.
For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and
salvation.”
5. What great benefits our Lord Jesus
offers us in the Lord’s Supper! This
raises an important question: Who is eligible to receive it? Who can approach the altar and there receive,
“Forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation,” through this means of grace? Those who know their need and their
Savior, those in whom the Holy Spirit has done His work--convicting them of
their sin and drawing them to Jesus as the one through whom God has promised
forgiveness. That faith makes us worthy
to approach our holy God. That faith
makes us worthy in His eyes. This helps
us understand how to prepare to receive this Sacrament. We can’t do anything that will “earn the
right” to commune or will produce in us enough “merit” to receive God’s
grace. By definition grace is the
undeserved love of God in Christ. To “be worthy and well prepared,” then
doesn’t mean to attain to a certain level of right actions, but to examine
ourselves and to see in ourselves our desperate need for Jesus. When we approach the altar this way, we come
in the worthiness, the righteousness of Jesus Himself, His worthiness and
righteousness replacing our own.
6. God’s gift of faith makes all the
difference. Because the Lord’s Supper
isn’t simply a “memorial meal,” because Jesus is truly present here in all His
holiness, in all His power, we don’t treat proper preparation lightly. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 11:29-31, “For anyone who eats and drinks without
recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick,
and a number of you have fallen asleep.
But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.” We could also understand that word unworthily to also mean carelessly.
Both these words can point to receive the Lord’s body and blood in
an unrepentant way, not sorry for one’s sins.
The faithful Christian comes to the Lord’s Supper in repentant
faith. Luther is reported to have said, “I sometimes rush to the altar and receive
the Sacrament without confession as a way of making clear to myself that
whether or not I feel a certain way about it has nothing to do with God’s act
of grace for me.” FEELING WORTHY has
little to do with actually being worthy. Regardless of how you feel, you’re
well-prepared when you are, a) sorry for your sins, b) believe in Jesus as your
Savior from sin, c) trust Jesus’ words in the Sacrament, “this is My body given for you; this is My blood shed for you, d)
intend by the power of the Holy Spirit to turn from your sins.
7. Our Lord Jesus welcomes us at His
Table. He urges us to come. He invites and, yes, even commands it in the
words, “Do this, to remember Me” because
He wants to give us so much there. Many
of us haven’t fully appreciated the meaning and blessing of this
Sacrament. As von Schenk says, “The central worship of the early church was
the Holy Communion. Back of their coming
together was, first and foremost, the desire to celebrate the Real Presence of
Christ in the Communion.” (The Presence, pp. 23-24). It would be good practice for every
congregation to offer Holy Communion on Sunday and on other special feast days
as well. Sometimes Luther is misquoted
as saying that going to Holy Communion 4 times a year is adequate. What Luther really said was that if a person
went to the Lord’s Supper too infrequently, he doubted whether that person was
a Christian. Luther went on to say, “You see, then, that we are not granted
freedom to scorn the Sacrament. I call
it scorning the Sacrament when a person, though there is nothing to hinder his
attendance, lets a long time pass without ever desiring the Lord’s Supper. If you want the liberty to do that, then you
may as well take the further liberty of not being a Christian so that you need
not believe or pray; for the one is just as much a commandment of Christ as the
other. (Janzow, p. 116). Our Lord Jesus said, “Do this.” We joyfully obey His
command and invitation. And He promises
His blessing to those who come often.
8. All of the blessings Jesus promises
us in the Lord’s Supper come to us, not because we merit them in and of
ourselves, but because He is merciful and He wants to bless us. Just as our own worthiness doesn’t somehow
“earn” for us the mercy of God in the Sacrament, neither does the worthiness of
the person who distributes it. What
makes the Lord’s Supper effective? The
same thing that gives Holy Baptism its power--the Word of God. It’s not the faith of the one who administers
these Sacraments, but our faithful Lord who keeps His promises to His
people. We receive forgiveness of sins,
life, and salvation through the means of grace, even if they are “administered by evil men,” as our
Lutheran Confessions say.
9. The more we realize all that God in
grace does for us and in us at the Lord’s Supper, the more we will approach Him
there. A member once told her pastor, “My Communion was ruined. I smiled.”
What a tragic misunderstanding of what it means to come to the
Lord’s Supper with a reverent, respectful attitude! We have good reason for joy as we meet our
Lord Jesus in His Supper. Our sins have
been forgiven. Our Savior’s death on the
cross has worked complete salvation for us.
Now by God’s grace, we rejoice in the assurance of His love. We share with our fellow believers the Feast
of the Lamb. We join the saints on earth
and the saints in heaven around His throne, singing the song of the redeemed.
10. Keeping all these benefits in mind,
we don’t need to wonder why another name for the Lord’s Supper is the Holy
Eucharist. Eucharist is a Greek word
that means thanksgiving. How thanksgiving and joy fill our hearts
as we think of our Savior’s care for us as He comes to touch each of us--His
brothers and sisters--personally in this Sacrament! Here we have not a dead doctrine but a
dynamic power, a great wellspring of power that the Lord Jesus has given to us,
weak and unworthy though we are. Refreshed
by His touch, we lift up our hearts in praise to our Savior, who has given us
His Holy Meal to us for the forgiveness of our sins, eternal life, and
salvation. Amen.
