Lord’s Supper – What Does This Mean?

The Forgiveness of Sins

Encore Post:

[Thirty-Seventh in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

King David was a prime example of someone who needed forgiveness. In one episode, he managed to shirk his duty as a commander, lust after his neighbor’s wife, use his power to rape or commit adultery with her, lie to her husband, send him on a suicide mission to murder him, then marry Bathsheba to cover it up. He sinned against everyone, it seems. Yet it is to God he goes for forgiveness. In the end, all sins are rebellion against God. (2 Samuel 11:1-12:25 and Psalm 51)

Forgiveness is hard to come by in this world. When we are hurt, we want to return that hurt in kind. Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism have no forgiveness — you pay back the bad karma you give with suffering in this life or nearly endless reincarnations. Mormons must cease sinning to pay for forgiveness and progress towards godhood. Pagan religions require a suitable sacrifice to an appropriate spirit.

Christianity is different. We have a loving and merciful God, who, in Jesus, died to pay for our forgiveness and, through the Holy Spirit, gives faith, the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The Spirit uses his Church to bring this forgiveness to all. In the Church, the Gospel is preached, God adopts his children through baptism, Jesus gives his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, and he hears our confessions and absolves us of our sins through pastors he sends to do so.

So, then, the Church is not a country club, a place where only good people need apply. It is a hospital, where we who are sick can get well, taking the only medicine that can make us well. We are, after all, beggars telling other beggars where they can find bread.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Enlightened with His Gifts

Encore Post:

[Thirty-Sixth In a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism,]

Everyone loves receiving gifts. They show us we are appreciated and that someone was thinking about us. This is true even when it comes from someone you love. Of course, a young woman loves to receive an engagement ring. It not only shows her that her boyfriend cares about her, but it also carries a promise. The day soon will come when he will make her his bride. It is filled with visions of a happy life, children, and the hope that she will not be alone as long as they both live.

It is likely the ring is not the first gift she received from him or the first gift he gave to her. And it will not be the last. Yet she would never consider returning a gift from her beloved. Each new gift comes with the same reminder that she is loved.

God, the Holy Spirit gives us many gifts. The Means of Grace are the most precious of them. While they are simple in form — written words on a page or said by a man, water poured on your head, bread and wine eaten with other very ordinary people — they are precious gifts. All of them come with the power of the Holy Spirit to create faith in our hearts, make a new Adam or Eve within us who loves God and wants to serve him. They give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

In the waters of baptism, we are adopted as God’s children. With the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, we eat the body of our Lord broken on the cross to pay for our sins and drink the blood of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. In Absolution, we hear the words of Jesus that our sins are forgiven in the voice of the one sent to say them to us.

These are gifts that produce more gifts. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These gifts serve God and our neighbors and testify that God is indeed good. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Remember that You Are Dust…

Encore Post: Ash Wednesday works like a kind of speed bump in the lives of Christians. After celebrating the birth of Jesus, hearing how God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, and seeing him in his full glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, we’re tempted to bask in the glory of God’s grace and love. Yet still our stubborn Old Adam or Old Eve clings to us and threatens to take over our lives. Lest we forget, Lent comes to help us discipline ourselves, repent of our sin, and live life, trusting in God and his promises. Ash Wednesday greets us with the words God spoke to Adam — and to us — when imposing the curse that resulted from the first sin: “Remember that you are dust and to the dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19)

This phrase is a part of the ancient discipline of remembering mortality. (Memento mori — “Remember death”) It is the conscious meditation on the cold, hard truth that all the pleasures and blessings of life are temporary and that death comes to all of us, often suddenly. Ash Wednesday calls on us to pause what we are doing and consider the damage our sin does in our lives, both now and eternally. The collect for the day sets the tone: “Almighty and everlasting God, You despise nothing You have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

Repentance is more than saying you’re sorry. The Greek word the New Testament uses for repentance is μετάνοια, which means “to completely change your mind.” It includes recognizing your sins, being sorry for them, and stopping doing them. All of this is only possible for Christians because it is the work of the Holy Spirit that makes us holy. Ash Wednesday wakes us up, reminds us how to use the disciplines of fasting, prayer, and meditation, and gives us the forgiveness of sins through confession, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. It sets the tone for our forty-day meditation. It marks our sorrow with the ashes of the palms from the previous Palm Sunday and with the sign of the Holy Cross, reminding us of the redemption that is ours in the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

May God grant you a blessed meditation on the suffering and death of Jesus so that you will be well prepared to celebrate with joy the coming Easter celebration.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

The Sabbath Rest

Encore Post:

[twelfth is a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

The Sabbath rest is ancient. God himself rested on the seventh day, just after he created the world in six days. When God gave his law to his people, the command to rest on the seventh day made the top ten. God knew that working without rest would damage his creatures. So he built it — rested every night, and on the seventh day. It provided time for his people to worship and to meditate on his word.

Yet for Christians, the day they worship — and rest — is a matter of freedom. It belongs to the civil law, the law for the nation of Israel. It is not part of the moral law, the law for all people. We know this because Jesus called himself “the Lord of the Sabbath” and St. Paul describes that freedom in Romans and Colossians. Still, the church chose from the beginning to rest every Sunday, the first day of the week, to remember the Resurrection of Jesus.

While Christians should worship God every day, resting on Sunday offers the opportunity to hear God’s word preached, to receive his gifts of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, to meet with each other and pray for each other, and to study the Word of God. It is not so much that we have to go to church as that we get to go to church. At many times and in many places, that freedom does not exist.

So we honor Sundays and holy days. We used the opportunity to receive forgiveness of sins and bread for our daily lives. We rejoice to honor our Lord Jesus, who died for us, rested in the tomb three days, and rose again, so that we might rest with him forever.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Three Days and Three Nights

[Eighty-Sixth in a series of posts on Bible Stories] Encore Post: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday are remembered by the Church from ancient times as the days on which our salvation was won by the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord. She accomplishes this with a single service that lasts three days. The Maundy Thursday divine service begins with an invocation but does not conclude with a benediction. Good Friday services have neither an invocation nor a benediction. The Vigil of Easter on Saturday evening does not begin with an invocation, but ends with a benediction.

The name Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin word mandatum — the first word in the Latin translation of Jesus’ command: “a new commandment I give to you: love one another.” (John 13:34) Jesus gave this command at the Last Supper, the night we also remember because he also instituted the Lord’s Supper during that Passover meal. The Maundy Thursday service ends with the stripping of the altar, the lectern, and the pulpit, and the removal of the pastor’s vestments. Often, the account of the Garden of Gethsemane and the arrest of Jesus is read during this time. We depart in silence to note that the disciples abandoned Jesus.

The day that begins at sunset on Maundy Thursday witnessed the whole of Jesus’ passion and death. We call it Good Friday because it is the day we were redeemed. It is also the first day of Christ’s rest in the tomb. This second day, Jesus was in the grave, which began at sunset on Friday. On Holy Saturday after sunset, the third day starts. The Church holds a vigil, a service that marks the beginning of Easter. Often, Christians are baptized during the vigil.

On these three days, Christ fulfilled his promise that he would take our sins to the cross, die to pay their due, make holy our graves by resting in death, defeat Satan and death, and rise again to shatter the grave forever. Three days to remember and to thank God for his mercy.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Five Loaves, Two Fishes and the Five Thousand

[Seventy-fifth in a series of posts on Bible Stories] Encore Post: Jesus had sent his apostles out on a mission to preach in the towns and villages of Galilee. When they returned to him, he decided that rest was in order. So they got into a boat, went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to a place in the wilderness. But people saw where they were going and ran ahead of them. When they got out of the boat, a crowd had gathered. So he taught them. The disciples recommended that Jesus send them away in the evening to get something to eat. But Jesus told them to feed the crowd. Since they had only five small loaves of bread and two fish, they thought it was impossible, but did as he asked. The whole crowd was fed with twelve baskets of bread pieces left over. (Mark 6:33-44)

The people no doubt remembered that, when God freed His people from slavery in Egypt, He led them into the wilderness for forty years. He fed them with bread from Heaven, called manna, and quails for meat at night. Much later, during a drought, the prophet Elijah stayed with a widow and her son in Zarephath. God made the widow’s flour and oil last until the prophet left.

When Jesus fed over five thousand people in the wilderness, they would remember these things and the other ways that God took care of His people. Later, Jesus would give us the Lord’s Supper, where He gives us His Body and Blood to eat with bread and wine. This sacrament meets our need for forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. When we remember how God provides us with food to eat, we also think of how He feeds us with his own body to strengthen us. He gives us bread in the wilderness of this life and bread for our long journey until we arrive home.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

he posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Faith

[Seventh in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2] Encore Post: Faith is one of those “church words” that everyone knows and uses, but finds hard to pin down. We use it to mean everything from a family of church bodies, to a system of things people believe, to trust in God, to accepting something is true, but that we cannot prove. The Greek language uses one word for both faith and belief. (πιστεύω — pisteoo — to believe, πίστις; pistis; Faith) When the New Testament uses the word, it uses it for both what we believe in and our trust in God to keep his promises to save us.

When the Bible talks about faith in God (Saving Faith, Justifying Faith) it means a trust in God to keep his promises, especially his promise to save us. This trust is not something we create by things we do. It is created in us when the Holy Spirit comes to us through the Gospel, Baptism, or the Lord’s Supper. (Romans 1:17, John 20:30-31, Ephesians 1:13, Romans 1:16-17) Our faith clings to Jesus, believing that his sufferings and death on the cross forgives our sins and gives us everlasting life. This faith responds to the Grace given to us in God’s Word and the Sacraments. It thanks God for his mercy, praises him and gives us the desire to serve God and our neighbors. (much more on this later. For now, see Ephesians 2:10)

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Means of Grace

[Sixth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2] Encore Post: Now and then, the news is filled with excitement over lottery jackpots worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Long lines form at convenience stores as everyone wants to buy a ticket. For all but a handful of people, the only value of the ticket is entertainment. Yet the very lucky winner is very happy indeed. She has won a fortune! Yet her bank account hasn’t changed a penny. Until the money is deposited, nothing has changed — other than she discovers she has more cousins than she ever knew she had!

Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have amazing riches in heaven. God loves us, gives us his grace. We are his children. Our sins are forgiven and we will live forever. Yet without a way of these things coming to us, it is not yet applied to us. To give these gifts to us, God uses the Means of Grace.

The Means of Grace are visible means by which God the Holy Spirit gives the gifts Jesus earned by his death on the cross. He uses these to plant faith in our hearts, strengthen and preserve it. Through them, we receive the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. He uses this to enter our hearts and live there.

These means are the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Holy Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and perhaps Absolution. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and sometimes absolution are called sacraments.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Lamb of God, Pure and Holy

Encore Post: The night God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, the Hebrews selected perfect lambs from their flocks. They had no injuries, blemishes, or birth defects. These lambs were slaughtered, their blood smeared on their doors, their meat roasted for a feast. That night, the Angel of Death passed over their houses as the firstborn of all Egypt perished.

The evening of the day God delivered us all from sin, death and the power of the devil, the disciples arranged a Passover meal for them and for Jesus. John the Baptist had called him the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. He took bread and said, “this is my body given for you” and wine and said, “this cup is the New Testament in my blood.” St. Paul calls him “our Passover, who is sacrificed for us.”

The Lord’s Supper, then, is our New Passover. In it, God gives us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. The Angel of Death passes over us. In baptism, we are united with him in his death on the cross. We enter the Red Sea of death with him and rise to new life when he breaks the seal of our graves.

Once again in Holy Week, we follow the Lamb of God, as he goes to his death willingly. We pray as he takes each step,

Lamb of God, pure and holy,
Who on the cross did suffer…
Have mercy on us, O Jesus.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

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One Loaf, One Body

Encore Post: [Sixty-third in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism] For many Christians, Holy Communion is a very personal thing. Even those who think of it as a symbol and not a sacrament cherish it. It has a way of strengthening the faith they have in Jesus. So it comes as a surprise to many that the Lord’s Supper has a way of doing the same thing between Christians. St. Paul says “because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body.” (1 Corinthians 10:17) When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we proclaim together his death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:26) so, when we commune together, we are confessing that we share the same faith as well as receive the benefits of the sacrament.

This is why Confessional Lutherans practice Closed Communion. All those that share the sacrament with us proclaim that what we teach is what they believe. Since non-Lutherans may not believe this, we do not want them to be saying something they do not believe. It is also why we do not commune at churches whose teachings we do not believe. In addition, if a communicant does not believe they receive Christ’s body and blood with the bread and wine of the sacrament, they may not examine themselves before receiving it. In love, we ask them not to put themselves in danger of sinning against Christ when they receive it.

Because we do not want this divide to remain, we take every opportunity to study God’s word with them on subjects on which we disagree.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indian