Welcome back to our study of how the Holy Spirit uses the Means of Grace to work faith and salvation within us. We've covered two of three in our past few lessons which brings us to the final Means of Grace which is the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Let's start by reading about the first time this took place and when it was instituted. Read here in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 26.
"17On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" 18He replied, "Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, 'The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.'" 19So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover. 20When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. 21And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me." 22They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, "Surely not I, Lord?" 23Jesus replied, "The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born." 25Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, "Surely not I, Rabbi?" Jesus answered, "Yes, it is you." 26While 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." 27Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. 28This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom.""
The Lord's Supper was instituted the same night Jesus was handed over to be crucified. The sacrament itself was during the Passover meal. Jesus used to visible elements from the Passover dinner using the unleavened bread and grape wine. We know that in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians that Jesus using visual elements listed above gave His commandment for His church to "do this." Read here in 1 Corinthians 11.
"23For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 27Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgement on himself."
So this is a sacrament that the Holy Spirit uses to bring forgiveness to us and how does He do this? Along with the bread and wine, Jesus gives His body and His blood respectively in which these elements are in participation with each other. There are some misconceptions out in the modern church, and they each have their own terms. Transubstantiation is the idea that bread and wine disappear and the body and blood remain. It's easy to see how you could believe this however if you were to put these things under a microscope your just going to see bread and wine. On the more dangerous end is representation. Representation is the teaching that because under the microscope you only see bread and wine, we're just doing a symbolic act to represent Christ's forgiveness. The Biblical truth couldn't be any more in the middle. Real Presence tells us that Jesus' body and blood are indeed in the sacrament. Paul tells us earlier in chapter 10.
"16Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. 18Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he?"
After Jesus' perfect life, death and resurrection, and with Holy Baptism, why does Jesus give us the Lord's Supper? Explained above in 1 Corinthians 11 Jesus gives us this sacrament as a remembrance of His death for us. Matthew tells us that it is a special personal covenant of forgiveness. Covenant is one of these fancy church terms you hear all of the time. A covenant is a promise. This is a promise from Jesus that our sins are covered by His death and that He did it for us.
Who is the Lord's Supper for? Unlike Baptism, this one is a little more exclusive. Jesus gave His supper for repentant disciples who are able to remember the Lord's death and are able to examine themselves. Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that we can eat and drink judgement on ourselves. We can take the Lord's Supper to our harm. So we need to examine ourselves every time we take communion.
The questions for self examination are as follow and they're hopefully nothing that a Christian should have to worry about, but important none-the-less. Am I sorry for my sin? Think about if you are living with some sin that your not ready to give up or ask forgiveness for. Then sit out on communion lest you bring judgement upon yourself. Do I trust in Jesus as my Savior? Do I believe that Jesus body and blood are truly present to assure me of forgiveness. And going back to the first question, do I intend with the help of God to live a more God-pleasing life? Of course we'll fall short of perfection but we should use the Lord's Supper as inspiration to work towards a God-pleasing life asking forgiveness for our sins and working to remove pet sins from our lives.
So who shouldn't receive the Lord's Supper? It's true that some could eat and drink and harm themselves in the process. As shown above, those who are not repentant Christians. If we bring a guest to church explain why they shouldn't go up to communion with us, explaining the reasons above. The uninstructed shouldn't take communion for that matter as they may not understand the remembrance of Jesus death and the terms of examination. Those who are unable to examine themselves should not take communion. Meaning little children and those who have some sort of debilitating mental illness. Not that they are damned, but as fellow Christian we don't want them to take communion to their harm. As it is a communion, those without a common faith should not partake with each other, you may not know what each other's communion represents and may not be partaking in what you think you are.
The practice of partaking communion with those of a common faith is called close communion. This is the practice of admitting only qualified communicants to the Lord's Supper. The two fellowships in the Lord's Supper are like the shape of the cross, vertical with Jesus, and horizontal with one another. Qualified communicants are confirmed members of the church. Confirmation is the strengthening given in directed Bible study and publicly acknowledged in a ceremony in which an individual publicly confesses faith in Jesus and unity of faith with the body of believers. Such a confession assures others we are ready for Holy Communion.
A quick note is that unlike baptism, communion is not something that can be given out by any one. Your pastor should be the one handing it out. Not to mention that unleavened bread and grape wine is not something we have ready access to and there is no communion in being alone. Also, communion is a whenever type of thing unlike the finality of baptism. Some people do it once a month, some twice, some once a year. We should readily take it when available.
I hope this doesn't make it seem like a huge task to partake in communion. Examination of one's self should take a tenth of a second and upon receiving we should feel blessed and inspired upon having the Holy Spirit work Christ's forgiveness in us. Join us next time as we see how the Holy Spirit gathers the Church. God bless your instruction and I pray your examination always produces God-pleasing results.
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