June 2005

ARTICLE TOOLS

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FOR AS OFTEN as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
1 Corinthians 11:26, NRSV

WE DO NOT RECEIVE these things as common bread or common drink, but as Jesus Christ our Savior who became incarnate by God's Word and took flesh and blood for our salvation.
Justin Martyr, Apology

WHY DO WE need the sacrament of Holy Communion alongside the Word? The sacrament offers us something the Word alone cannot: deep assurance that is exactly fitted by God to our human need and receptivity. The Lord's Supper is a physical handle faith grabs hold of, allowing us to grasp God's promises with our bodies as well as our minds. … The sacrament "incarnates" the Word, in a way analogous to how Christ was the original incarnate Word.
Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper

OVER THE CENTURIES the church has fussed and argued over exactly how Jesus is present in the bread and wine. … I don't think propositional understanding is the main point with the sacraments, though. They speak to us in ways beyond words.
Debra Rienstra, So Much More

THE SERMON should serve, not dominate in the church. It should serve the presence of Christ which we celebrate in the Eucharist.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality

COMMUNION is not an event in which autonomous individuals have parallel religious experiences. We do not come to Christ alone but with and through one another. The meaning of the term "priesthood of all believers" is not that we can come to God privately but that we come to him on one another's behalf: each is a priest for the other.
John Rempel, "Communion as a Gathered Body"

ACCORDING TO PAUL, it was not truly the Lord's Supper unless everyone from any social status ate it together, ...