Lord’s Supper – Page 2 – What Does This Mean?

Enlightened with His Gifts

Encore Post: Everyone loves receiving gifts. They show us that 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 carries with it 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 that she received from him or gave to him. 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 reminded that she is loved.

God the Holy Spirit gives to 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 and gives 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, with 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)

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

Remember that You Are Dust…

Encore Post: Ash Wednesday works like kind of a speed bump in the lives of Christians. After celebrating the birth of Jesus, listening to the ways in which God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, 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 your 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 stop what we are doing, 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 means “to completely change your mind.” It includes recognizing your sins, being sorry for them and to stop 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, 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, reminds 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 that you will be well prepared to celebrate with joy the coming Easter celebration.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

The Sabbath Rest

Encore Post: 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 in — rest every night and 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 a 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 and any day, resting on Sunday brings with it 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 not so much that we have to go to church than 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 use the opportunity to receive the 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.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

A Walk Through the Liturgy: The Words of our Lord Part 2

Encore Post: In today’s installment of our walk through the liturgy, we will spend some time talking about the first part of the “Words of our Lord” namely the words concerning the bread.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave to the disciples and said: “Take, eat; this is My body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of Me.”

We should remember that this was a Passover Meal, commemorating God’s greatest act of salvation to date for Israel. However, on this night the meal between Jesus and His Disciples, would begin to unveil the act of salvation to which the Passover points and is fulfilled once and for all by his all availing sacrifice at the cross.

Dr. Arthur Just, Jr. in his fabulous book Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service, lays out the events that take during a “Passover Meal”, for a sketch of the events of the Passover meal liturgy see pages 59-62. We learn that there is eating then teaching at the table, where the story of the exodus would be retold and the food interpreted accordingly, followed by more eating, etc.

Luke is the most thorough Gospel concerning the events of Jesus’ Last Supper, telling us about two cups of wine (See Luke 22:17-18 and 22:20). They are not the same cup, according to Passover Liturgy.

As part of the Passover Meal Liturgy, the food itself would be interpreted by the host of meal. This is where the words of institution come into play. Jesus interprets the bread concerning himself! And it is given up “on behalf of you” (Luke 22:19). In the other accounts, there is no atonement language spoken over the bread. Thanks be to God for multiple accounts from the Gospels, catching and pointing out each detail so that our theology may be as rich as possible. Christ’s body is part of the sacrifice for our atonement!

Let us also note: Jesus words concerning the breading being his body. Is means Is! There is no way around what Jesus says. There is no other way to interpret Jesus own words. This is My Body. What we get when we receive the Sacrament is exactly what Jesus says we get: His Body. This is the same body given up for you at the cross, buried, and raised on the third day. This is the same body as the body which ascended to the right hand of the Father.

How it literally happens, we will never know on this side of heaven. That is why it is called a Sacrament: Mystery. We will look at the second part of the words of our Lord concerning the cup next.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Sunday School: Five Loaves, Two Fishes and the Five Thousand

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 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 at 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 were 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 more than 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 for us food to eat, we also think of how he also 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.

Blog Post Series

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Faith

Faith is one of those “church words” that everyone knows and uses, but find 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)

Blog Post Series

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Means of Grace

Encore Post: Every 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 then 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.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

To Blog Post Series

The Lord’s Supper and Ascension

These are thoughts that I had when reading the wonderful book Without Flesh: Why the Church is Dying even Though Christ is Still Alive by Jonathan Fisk published by CPH. I highly recommend this book to be read for the continued strengthening and resolve to trust our Lord’s Promise made to us in His Supper.

Now that the Resurrection of our Lord has passed, the Body of Christ, turns her attention to her Lord’s ascension and His promise that “it is for your benefit that I go away.” It is an audacious promise for the disciples to belief because what is better than having Jesus “present” with them? How is it better for Jesus to go away? It makes no sense to our human minds. What if I told you our Risen Lord Jesus is more present with us now after His ascension than He was while He walked on Earth during His Ministry?

Remember who Jesus is. He is God in the Flesh. God has the power to be everywhere at any moment in time. When Jesus walked the earth before His death and resurrection, He denied himself these rights of His divinity. He was locally present with His Disciples in Galilee. The Church speaks of this as Christ’s time of Humiliation. But before Jesus ascended into heaven, He spoke to his Disciples, “All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). The authority of God has really always been Jesus’ authority. Now He wields all that authority as a man! When He ascends to the Right Hand of God, He is now saying that His body can be anywhere He wants it to go. As Paul says, “Christ fills all things.” He does so in His body of flesh and blood. The Sacrament of the Altar in particular is one of those places by which He promises to give Himself and the forgiveness of sins.

Christ hears our prayers and all the prayers of the saints around the world with His own human ears. So also, now that He has ascended, He can be at every altar in His body where the Sacrament of the Altar is being celebrated. And this, my friends, is better for us. He, as the God Man, ascended to the right hand of God so that He could be with His Church in a way far more beneficial than merely sitting on a throne somewhere in Jerusalem. Hence, why we hear the words of Luke as the apostles leave the mountain. They were rejoicing, for they knew Christ had not left them, but rather was with them forever (Luke 24:52–53, cf. Matthew 28:20). They firmly believed that wherever they gathered together in the name of Jesus and according to His commands, there Jesus was with them physically in flesh and blood for the forgiveness of sins and salvation. The Church has repeated those commands more often than any other words of Christ a in remembrance of Him. They are “Take, eat” and “Take, drink.”

Let us give thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh, died, and rose in the flesh also ascended in the flesh. He does it all for our benefit that He may be with His whole church on Earth in His flesh and blood for our forgiveness and eternal salvation.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Worship is About God’s Gifts to You

Encore Post: In most churches, worship is about what Christians do to glorify God. It is about praying, giving contributions to support the work of the Church, singing your song and dedicating yourself to follow Jesus. Lutherans understand worship as all about what God gives to us — Absolution, God’s word read and preached to us, and the Sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus gives us his body to eat with bread and his blood to drink with wine. In these gifts, his means of grace, in a mysterious way, God places and strengthens faith in our hearts, gives us the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. We sing his praises, pray to him at his invitation and offer the sacrifice of our lives to thank him for these gifts.

So, worship really is not about us — it is about God’s gifts. God invites us to gather together the same way that our mothers and fathers order us to come and eat dinner. When they call us to eat a well-prepared, delicious feast, we don’t say “Do I have to eat it?” or “But we just had a big dinner last week!” We get up and hurry to receive this wonderful gift of our host’s love and enjoy the time together with those we love.

So, the question we should ask ourselves and each other is not: “Do we have to go to church?” but really is “Do we get togo to church?” The Lord and Creator of the Universe is coming to church. He is the same Jesus who loved us so much that he became one of us, suffered, died and rose again so the he could give us his gifts, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Let’s go and unwrap them!

Old Man, New Man

Encore Post: When the Holy Spirit uses his gifts to create faith in our heart, he does more than just change our minds. He creates a whole new person within us. (2 Corinthians 4:6, 5:17) Our new self, our new Adam or Eve, loves God, is thankful for the salvation he won for us when Jesus died on the cross and desires to do good works, serving God and our neighbors. Our new person produces truly good works, deeds done because we love God. The Holy Spirit makes us more and more holy through these things we do for him and produces his fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Yet, in this life, even though our old self, sometimes called by St. Paul the flesh, is drowned in the waters of Holy Baptism (Romans 6:3-4), it is not quite dead yet. Our old self seeks to serve ourselves and looks out for our own interests, to satisfy our bodily hungers and appetites rather than channel them to serve the way God made them. It seeks praise from the world and fills our hearts and minds with evil thoughts and desires. Every day in this life is a battle between our Old Adam and our New Adam, our Old Eve and our New Eve.

The Holy Spirit does not abandon us to fight this battle alone. He uses God’s law to remind us of our sin, the Gospel to forgive that sin, reminds us of our baptism and its power, feeds us with Christ’s Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper and uses the ears and the voice of the pastors he calls to care for us to hear our confessions of sin and forgive them with the sure promise of our Lord Jesus.

We are never alone, then. Our Counselor stays by our side, prays for us and calls to our mind and heart all that Jesus promised us. With him, we will grow holier until the day death finally kills the Old Person in us and we go with him to be with Jesus until the day the resurrection of all flesh.