In Remembrance of Me
At the last supper, Jesus told his disciples to “Do this in remembrance of me” (First Corinthians 11:24, Luke 22:19). In this lesson we will investigate the meaning of the word “remembrance,” and what it means to celebrate the Eucharist in remembrance of Christ’s death and resurrection. To help us in this study, we will investigate Psalm 66. The psalms were used in worship, and they help us understand what happens in worship. As we shall see, Psalm 66 will help us to understand how Christ comes to us as we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. For our study of Psalm 66, I will be using the outstanding commentary on the psalms by Artur Weiser.(1)
Let us begin with a prayer.
Living God, we give you great thanks that your Son Jesus Christ will not leave us comfortless, but by his mighty Spirit make himself known to us in the breaking of the bread. For this and all else we thank you in his name. Amen
Here is Psalm 66, taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible. Please read it several times, asking God to illumine your heart and mind as you read and consider the points below.
Psalm 66 – To the choirmaster. A Song. A Psalm
1 Shout for joy to God, all the earth; 2 sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise! 3 Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. 4 All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.” Selah 5 Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man. 6 He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him, 7 who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations– let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah 8 Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, 9 who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. 10 For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. 11 You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; 12 you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. 13 I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will perform my vows to you, 14 that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble. 15 I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah 16 Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul. 17 I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. 18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. 19 But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!
In our next lesson, Eucharist as Covenant Renewal, we will learn that the Eucharist is a covenant renewal service. To help in this study of Eucharist as covenant renewal, we will study Exodus 19:1-24:1-11, the record of the covenant first established at Mount Sinai. The covenant of Sinai was composed of three principal parts, the recitation of God’s mighty acts, his commandments followed by a pledge to keep these commandments, and finally, the sealing of the covenant by sacrifice and a meal eaten in the presence of God. The covenant can also be found in Joshua 24 where God, under the leadership of Joshua, renewed the covenant with the people of Israel. This covenant of Joshua 24, like the covenant at Sinai, entailed a recital of God’s mighty acts of deliverance. The covenant began by announcing the name of the Lord (see Exodus 20:2, Joshua 24:2), and as seen in our study, The Consecration of Space and Time, God became present when his name was announced to the congregation. In this lesson we will learn that God also becomes present as his mighty acts of deliverance are proclaimed in a covenant renewal service.
We are going to make five observations about Psalm 66. First, as will be seen, God becomes present to the worshippers in the covenant renewal service when his name is proclaimed and his mighty acts narrated, where the term “present” is understood as described in Trinity and Incarnation. Second, when God becomes present, his glory is so compelling that it gives intimations of a future time when, to quote Paul, God will be “all in all” (I Corinthians 15:28). Third, not only does God become present, the original saving acts themselves become a present reality in which God saves in the present as in the past. Fourth, God and the original saving acts as a present reality are connected with each other. God makes himself known in the narration of these saving events in worship. Finally, the saving past events, which God makes present in worship, are the foundation for God’s present saving events, not only in worship when past events become saving events, but in the lives of those gathered to renew their covenant with God. Let us see how this works out in Psalm 66.
According to Weiser, Psalm 66 was spoken by an individual immediately after the congregation had heard the name of God and the recitation of his mighty acts of deliverance in a covenant renewal service. Later, apparently, this proclamation of thanksgiving to God was put to music so that the Psalm was prefaced by the words, “To the choirmaster. A Song. A Psalm.”
Having just heard the saving events of Israel’s history and the name of God proclaimed, the psalmist, overcome by the presence of God given by the history and name, addresses himself to everyone on earth, “Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise! Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds!'” The deeds to which he refers are the saving events of Israel’s past history, and, in verse 6, he mentions two of the most important events of these deeds, Israel’s escape at the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land. The presence of God evoked by the name and the mighty deeds of Israel’s history is so great that the psalmist knows at once that “All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name” (verse 4), “that great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you” (verse 3), and that God “rules by his might forever” (verse 7). In making these proclamations of praise, the psalmist is not simply taking historical events, such as the escape at the Red Sea or the crossing of the Jordan, and extrapolating from these events to conclude that God rules forever over all events. Rather, he has encountered the great and holy God as proclaimed in the saving history, and as he meets God, he sees at once that God rules over the nations and is worthy of their praise, because, in the wonder of his presence, God can only rule and be praised. For this reason, in light of God’s greatness, the psalmist recognizes that “All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name” (verse 6).
No one knows exactly when this psalm was composed. Doubtless, however, it was composed a number of centuries before Christ when Israel was a tiny nation in a vast world of nations. At that time, scarcely anyone outside Israel praised Yahweh the God of Israel. Nevertheless, in the moment of encountering God, it was clear to the psalmist that all the earth praises the God of Israel. This was not a fact of life at the time of the composition of the psalm. It was, however, an immediate perception into the nature of God. God is so glorious that all the earth, upon knowing God, would burst into praise. For this reason the psalm has an eschatological aspect, where “eschatological” refers to the end time, the time when God will finally and fully reveal himself. For the psalmist, however, this future reality is a present fact, “All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.” In a similar way, Paul, having encountered the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus will say “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11). Weiser puts the matter like this, “And it is here, too, that we find the root of the eschatological way of thinking peculiar to the Old Testament, which bridges the gap between periods and localities, and concentrates the whole range of events in the single moment of the cultic act [the act of worship], so that the past, present, and the future coincide and Israel together with the whole world and the nations are summoned to be witnesses of these events (Pss. [Psalms] 46.10; 47.1, 8f; 68.32; 93; 96; 97; 98.2ff.;99.1ff; 100.1 etc.).”(2)
Having just heard of God’s mighty acts recited in worship, the psalmist now invites the congregation to see the great deeds that God has done. “Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man. He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him, who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations — let not the rebellious exalt themselves” (vv. 5-7). When the psalmist says, “Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man,” he is inviting the worshipping congregation to “see” the present reality of God’s past acts. When the psalmist says, “There did we rejoice in him,” he means that, as the past event became present to the people, they rejoiced in the event as did the people of Israel when God delivered them at the Red Sea or allowed them to cross the Jordan river on dry land. The Hebrew language does not have tenses, past, present, or future, but the verb form for “rejoice” is in the imperfect, meaning that their rejoicing was not a completed action, but an unfinished one, a rejoicing that was still occurring as the past became a present reality. Weiser expresses this insight in these words,
The phrase “see” indicates in the context in which it is used the dramatic character of the cultic representation of the Heilsgeschichte (cf. Pss. 46.8; 48.8; see Intr. 42 f.). The witness which the members of the cult community are able to bear is based on the fact that they experience God’s redemptive work at first hand, that is to say, in their own person and as an immediately present event, by means of the cultic representation of the Heilsgeschichte. … The psalm therefore presents itself as the response of the cult community to the recital of the Heilsgeschichte tradition which has taken place in a previous cultic act; this act was understood as a present action of God directed towards the members of the cult community themselves and causing all historical differences of space and time to disappear in the face of the reality of God, so that participants in the cult, in facing God, faced the same situation in which the people of God had once found themselves at the time of the Exodus and their entry into the Promised Land. In this way the biddings in vv. 3 and 5 are easily accounted for, and so, above all, is the wording of v. 6c: “there will we rejoice in him.” In the cultic representation the “there” and the “once” of history becomes the “now” and the “here” of the Heilsgeschichte; it becomes the eternal presence of the rule of God which is the true object of the cultic ceremony and of the hymnic praise of the tribes of the covenant people (see Intr. 42ff.).(3)
When Weiser uses the phrase, “cultic representation of the Heilsgeschichte,” he is referring to the saving history (Heilsgeschichte is German for “saving history”) being recited in worship where “cultic” or “cult” refers to worship. In other words, Weiser is making the point that the saving history, when recited in worship, becomes a saving, present event. This event is so real the people can see it, and the people are redeemed again as they hear and see their history made present and meet the God who reveals himself by that history. The joy of the congregation knows no bounds, not only because they come before God, which they do, but also because they participate in the original event of their ancestor’s deliverance, and rejoice again for the event itself is a present, saving fact. In this moment with God, and delivered as were their ancestors, they know they are eternally safe because their God “rules by his might forever.” This was true regardless of the external circumstances of their lives.
To make further sense of this, it would be helpful to consider the matter in light of the Hebrew understanding of the soul.(4) The soul, for the Hebrews, was a center of awareness, sensation, perception, feeling, energy, force, and power from which the soul manifests itself in words, actions, and deeds. One of the characteristic actions of the soul is speech. Words are the bodily expression of what is in the soul. Once spoken, words carry imprints of a person’s soul to those who receive the words. Words can also carry imprints of past events, and these can enter the soul as if the person were actually there when the events occurred. In that sense the soul is not limited to one place and time. The soul does not literally fly out of the body, but it can, when hearing of distant events, enter into the reality of those events, receive their power for good or ill, and act in response to the reality of those far-off events. In the previous paragraph, it was said that the past events became a present reality; this does not mean that the events of the past literally move from the past into the present. Rather, the soul of the worshippers was gripped by the power of the past events, conveyed by the saving history, in such a way that the events become a present fact restoring their souls. Not only can the soul be taken into the past, the soul, and this is true of the prophets, can be carried into the future. “The soul is thus unlimited in more than one dimension, i.e. both in breadth and in depth, in space and in time.”(5) Impelled by the Spirit of God, the prophet can enter into the reality of future events as illumined by the words of God in the form of a vision, a dream, or spoken words. This “does not mean that the soul leaves the body. The soul still cleaves to the body, but part of it has been sent to far-off regions.”(6) Being ‘”sent to far-off regions” means that the dream, the vision, the saving history narrated in worship fill the soul so that the soul experiences these far-off matters as if they were present realities. When the psalmists says, “There did we rejoice in him,” he does not mean that the past literally traveled into the present, nor that he literally traveled into the past and was physically present there, but rather, his soul, hearing the past saving events, became present to them as if he were there. This presence of past events is as powerful and redemptive for the worshippers as it was for those who originally escaped through the Red Sea or crossed over the Jordan.
Furthermore, in the Hebrew conception of the person, a person’s words and deeds arise in the soul and manifest through the body. Therefore, once the psalmist has encountered the saving God through the proclamation of the saving acts, he at once enjoins the members of the congregation, even the whole world, to sing the praises of Yahweh. Even more, as he encounters the goodness of God, made present through his saving acts, the psalmist makes a promise to God in the presence of the congregation. “I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will perform my vows to you, … I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats.”
It light of the fact that God reveals himself by means of the name and saving history, both heard and then seen, it must be said that God binds himself to these events by using them to reveal his very nature. There is, in other words, no mystical knowledge of God which leaves behind this verbal revelation. Nor is there another history which saves. Rather, the specific past actions, made present to the soul, are the events by which God saved, saves, and will continue to save. That God bound himself to the particular saving events of Israel’s history is analogous to the Word became flesh of John 1:14, and as seen in our study of John’s gospel, it is the representation of that “Word made flesh” in the apostolic testimony that saves today. Here is Weiser,
In the eyes of the people, however, God is not an impenetrable and ineffable mystery before which they bow down to the dust, overwhelmed by mystical emotions; for he had proclaimed his name before them and has revealed himself to them by his “terrible deeds,” that is to say, by his miraculous redemptive work which they are allowed to “see” with their own eyes, so that being witnesses of “what God has done among men” (v. 5), they can testify on their part to the “everlasting rule of his might” (vv. 3,7).(7)
This point is an important one, for in worship, the saving history, above all, the life, death, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, his intercession at God’s right hand, and the return of Jesus are the saving events by which we are saved. It is these events, and God present by these events, that allows God to become objectively present to the believer. As the words of the saving history of Jesus Christ are presented in worship, the heart and mind can hear, understand, receive, and respond to God made present as these events, thereby enabling worshippers to respond personally to the living God. The saving work of Jesus Christ, therefore, must be faithfully presented in worship by sermon, song, and liturgy, and if they are not, God is not honored and his saving work is diminished.
Finally, we come to the fifth point. Beginning in verse 8, the psalmist now asks the people to bless the Lord, and then, having in mind the dangers through which the people of God have passed in their own recent history, the events of their lives, he thanks God that he has not let their feet slip. In a general and metaphorical way, he describes these dangers, troubles, and difficulties through which the people have recently passed. He reminds the people of God’s presence with them in their times of trouble and points out that it is only through trials that the people of God are tested and made fit for his service, purified even “as silver is tried.” In spite of these trials, however, the Lord “brought us out to a place of abundance.”
In verse 13, the psalmist, having reflected on how the members of the congregation have passed through difficult times, begins to reflect on his own personal experience, his own times of difficulty. In his afflictions, he cried out to God, “I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.” God heard his cry and delivered him, and out of thanksgiving, the psalmist promises to keep the vows he made in his time of trouble. He will come into the house of God and offer sacrifices of fatted animals, bulls, goats, and rams. He invites the assembly, those who fear God, to hear his testimony, for the psalmist “will tell what he [God] has done for my soul.” In this way the deeds of God for the community, recited in the context of Israel’s original saving history, are continued and echoed in his mighty acts of salvation for individuals within the community, and the whole results in the praise and worship of the living God.
There is an order here. The Psalm begins with the great saving acts of the community recited in worship. These were, most likely, recited by a priest. The Psalm ends with the experience of the individual which has its foundation, its validity, in these prior saving acts because the salvation of the individual rested on the salvation of the community set forth in the Heilsgeschichte . For Christians, the deeds and words of Jesus are the fundamental, normative saving events, and this revelation is the foundation for Christ’s action in the world today. As it says in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Reflecting on Psalm 66, the works of Christ in the lives of believers have a place in worship, although their testimony does not have the authority of the original words and deeds of Christ, and therefore, that testimony is only valid in so far as its reflects Christ’s original saving deeds.
We may summarize the essence of the foregoing in this statement: as the worshipping community sets forth the past events of God’s salvation, the Lord makes these past events a present saving reality as a foretaste of the final consummation. As this happens, worshippers receive all the blessings of the saving events as past, present, and future saving acts. Let us now see how these same ideas are relevant to the Holy Eucharist.
At the last supper, Jesus told his disciples to ” Do this in remembrance of me” (First Corinthians 11:24, Luke 22:19), and then he said, “I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29, also Mark 14:25, and for similar ideas Luke 22:16 and I Corinthians 11:26). At this point our focus will be on “Do this in remembrance of me,” leaving the eschatological aspect to our essay, Eucharist as the Dawn of the Age to Come.
The words “Do this” not only meant to recite the saving event, but to do what was done at the last supper. As described in our study, The Formation of the Eucharist, the priest and people do four things — the bread and wine are brought forward, the priest gives thanks, breaks the bread, and the bread and wine are then given to the people. As the bread and wine are blessed, the following words are said, taken from A Liturgy for Eucharist.
For in the night in which he was betrayed, he took bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Likewise, after supper, he took the cup; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink you all of this; for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins. Do this, as oft as you shall drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, according to the institution of your dearly beloved Son our Savior Jesus Christ, we, your humble servants, do celebrate and make here before your divine Majesty, with these your holy gifts, which we now offer you, the memorial your Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; rendering to you most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits secured for us by the same.
In our study of John’s gospel in the lesson,Trinity and Incarnation, we learned “that the Holy Spirit would remind the disciples of everything that Jesus has said and done (14:15, 14:26, 15:26, 16:10, 16:14-15). That is, after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, the Spirit will enliven the disciples’ memories of Jesus’ words and deeds so that they continue in relationship with him even though he is no longer physically present.” This also applied to anyone who believed the apostolic witness, received the Spirit, and lived accordingly. In regard to the Holy Eucharist, the apostolic witness is preserved in the gospel accounts of Jesus celebrating Passover with his disciples, and as believers do what Jesus commanded them to do on the night of his betrayal, the Holy Spirit reminds believers of what Christ has said and done as set forth in the eucharistic words.
As just described in our study of Psalm 66, this remembering of Jesus is a making present of a past event. This “event,” however, is the person of Jesus himself. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” That is, it is the person of Jesus who becomes present, and his person is not distinct from, but rather is “his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension.” It is not the case that the time of Jesus becomes present, and within that time, Jesus is present. Rather, the converse is true. First and foremost, Jesus himself is present, and since he lived and acted in time, his time becomes a present reality. Further, the whole of his person is there, his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and even his coming again on the last day to judge the living and the dead. Jesus, the whole person becomes present in the Holy Eucharist.
Although the whole person of Christ becomes present in worship, no one grasps his nature fully. In the context of the entire worship service, the Word of God and the Holy Communion, Jesus Christ is proclaimed in many ways — in the lessons, prayers and sermon, as well as the words and deeds of Holy Communion. As these events unfold, the Holy Spirit ministers the person of Jesus to the congregation, emphasizing and calling to mind his various deeds and words according to the divine wisdom and the needs of the congregation and each of its members. For example, suppose the gospel reading for a particular Sunday is Mark 1:14-20, the calling of the first disciples. As this is read, the Spirit will enliven this event in the hearts of the congregation and some may well be moved to commit themselves to following Christ. Or, again, as the Great Thanksgiving is said by the priest, some may be overwhelmed by the glory of Christ’s love and rejoice that they have been chosen to know him. As this happens, members of the congregation, and the congregation as a whole, interact with the living Lord Jesus. He meets believers personally, in a dynamic personal interaction made alive by Spirit.
A further point can be advanced. Christ is the Word of God and all speech has its moments of silence as do all relationships. Sometimes, in worship, it appears that God does not do or say anything. This is not unusual and could be a result of several factors. Sometimes we have hard hearts and are not attentive even though God is offering himself to us. At other times, God is happy with us and believes nothing needs to be said or done. He is working silently without our awareness. There must have been times when Jesus and his disciples simply enjoyed each other’s company without words or deeds. Sometimes God judges us by forsaking us. The ongoing celebration of the Eucharist presents the whole person of Christ, and all these aspects can occur, including Christ being abandoned by God on the cross. At times, Christians enter this reality, but even when we experience being abandoned by God, the words of Christ, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” comfort us for we know he is with us even in our darkness. Good Friday is the day set aside to remember God’s severest judgment on us, the justice of our being forsaken, as well as a time of repentance and waiting for the glory that lies ahead.
Over the course of the year with its celebration of the major feasts, as well as the lessons from the lectionary, as described in our study, the Consecration of Space and Time, the full life of Christ is set before the congregation. His saving act of the cross and resurrection, however, is so central, the foundation and hope of all, that it is celebrated weekly in the Great Thanksgiving. When the words, “This is my body, … this is my blood,” are spoken, the great saving act of Christ is remembered, “his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension.” As this is enlivened by the Spirit, persons may well enter into eternal life with Christ. In short, the whole person of Christ is present and active in the Holy Eucharist and the faithful can have a living, personal relationship with him.
As discussed in our lesson, Trinity and Incarnation, the person of Jesus is the union of the divine and human nature, and the Eucharist sets forth both natures. Consider the following words taken from the communion service.
And we most humbly beseech you, O merciful Father, to hear us; and, of your almighty goodness, to bless and sanctify, with your Word and Holy Spirit, these your gifts of bread and wine; that we, receiving them according to your Son our Savior Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood.
The words “Son,” and “Word” denote Jesus’ divine nature. The words “death and passion,” “body and blood” convey his human nature. These are aspects of the one person “your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.” As the Eucharist unfolds, God the Word becomes present and active as the eucharistic words and deeds. God the Word does not create a new revelation as was the case when God the Word took flesh as the man Jesus. Rather, by the work of the Holy Spirit, the original person of Jesus Christ is made a present reality, and that original two-fold nature entails the active presence of God the Word. There is an order here. In the case of the incarnation, the order is the divine nature (God the Word), the human nature of Mary, and then, the divine nature assumes human nature creating one person by the Spirit in the womb of Mary. With regard to the Eucharist, it is not the case that God the Word joins himself to the bread and wine making Christ present in a new revelation as was the case with Mary. Those who receive the bread and wine are asked to remember, that is, to allow the liturgical words and actions to make the person of Jesus a present reality as known from the original, saving revelation. The Holy Eucharist begins with the original person of Christ (union of two natures as one person), then, as the bread and wine are presented and blessed, the Spirit makes real the original person of Christ who then blesses those who receive him in faith. The work of the Spirit does not make a new revelation, nor is Christ sacrificed again, but rather, brings to remembrance the original revelation as a present reality. As stated in John’s gospel, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). In both cases, incarnation and Eucharist, Word and Spirit are active, but in different ways. For that reason the priest asks the Father to “bless and sanctify, with your Word and Holy Spirit” the bread, wine, words, and deeds of Eucharist to reveal the person of Jesus Christ so that believers may be “partakers of his most blessed body and blood.”
This matter was an important issue at the time of the 16th century Reformation when Anglicans broke with the Church of Rome over matters of doctrine and practice. One issue of great importance was whether or not the Eucharist was a celebration of the once and for all sacrifice of Christ upon the cross which was the Anglican position, or whether, according to the Roman doctrine of the mass, the sacrifice was repeated again and again with each celebration of the Eucharist. The Reformers insisted, on the basis of Hebrews 9:25-26, that Jesus did not, and here we quote Hebrews, “offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” In terms of Eucharist this means that the once and for all sacrifice is made effective, made present, but not repeated in each celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
It is important to stress that when Jesus Christ becomes present and active, he does so as one person with two natures, and he is experienced as such. That is to say, through the work of the Spirit and for willing hearts, human beings not only have the capacity to encounter empirical realities such as bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, but also divine realities, the Word of God, and by means of the one person, Jesus Christ, the congregation comes home to the transcendent Holy Father, the living God of love. This is what makes Holy Eucharist, and worship in general, so wonderful. We meet the living God, and even more, he makes his home with us as described in John’s gospel and discussed in Trinity and Incarnation.
In the course of the centuries, there has been intense debate among theologians as to how the bread and wine can become the body and blood of Jesus. Although our primary goal is to convey the wonder of the living Lord active in the Holy Eucharist, I will present what I consider to be the Anglican position on this issue.
At the time of the Reformation, the debate centered on the question of how the human nature of Christ is present in the Eucharist. The divine nature was easily understood as present in the Eucharist since divinity is not limited by time and space, but created natures are normally limited, and since Christ’s human nature had ascended to the right hand of the Father, it was hard to see how his human nature could be present in the Eucharist. In a previous paragraph it was stated that the full person of Christ became present, his human and divine natures. The question now is, how does the human nature become present?
Here is a quotation from Article 25 of The Articles of Religion.
The sacraments instituted by Christ are not only badges or tokens of the profession of Christians but are also sure witnesses and effectual signs of God’s grace and good will towards us. Through them he works invisibly within us, both bringing to life and also strengthening and confirming our faith in him.
And here is a portion of Article 28,
The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the mutual love that Christians ought to have among themselves. Rather, it is a sacrament of our redemption through Christ’s death. To those who rightly, worthily and with faith receive it, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and similarly the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.
The body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only in a heavenly and spiritual manner. The means by which the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.
These articles affirm that the sacraments, in this case bread and wine, are “badges or tokens of the profession of Christians,” as well as “a sign of the mutual love that Christians ought to have among themselves.”(8) A badge or a token represents something other than itself, and in regard to the Holy Communion, the bread and wine represent the body and blood of Christ. At the time of the Reformation, there were those who believed that the bread and wine represented Christ simply be reminding them of their professed belief in Christ and their love for one another. In this view, the Eucharist was merely a memorial, something remembered by the participants, but Christ was not active in the Eucharist in the strong sense described above. The articles do affirm that believers are reminded of their love for one another and their professed faith in Christ, but goes on to say that the sacraments are “effectual signs of grace and God’s good will towards us.” This grace and good will was promised when Christ ordained the sacrament of Holy Communion. A sacrament entails a promise. The promise is the word of institution given when the sacrament was ordained. When Christ instituted the Holy Communion, he made a promise, “This is my body, …. this is my blood.” The Lord Jesus was Jewish, a Hebrew, and in the Hebrew understanding, the body is the outward form of the soul, the heart, and the whole self so that, by means of physical realities received through the senses, the whole self can becomes present through actions and audible words.(9) When Christ said, “This is my body, … this is my blood,” he meant that he personally would become present when the physical bread and wine were received in remembrance of him. In other words, Christ promised to be present and active in the way of Psalm 66, that is, Christ will become present as he is remembered in the sacramental feast. The question still remains, however, in what way, if at all, is the human nature of Jesus present in the Eucharist?
The Anglican Reformers affirmed Christ’s presence by saying that the bread and wine are “effectual signs of God’s grace and good will towards us.” The term “effectual signs” does not mean that the signs, that is, the bread and wine, have spiritual effects in and of themselves. They have physical effects like anything else we would eat, but in and of themselves, they do not effect grace or God’s good will towards us. Only God can effect his good will, and the term “good will” means a personal relationship with God as known in Jesus Christ. At the time of the Reformation, Anglicans thereby rejected the view of the Roman Church that the bread and wine literally became the body and blood of Christ, where “literal” meant that Jesus’ body was physically present as the bread and wine. According to Rome, the bread and wine themselves were changed so that they physically became the body and blood of Christ while still preserving their appearance as bread and wine. In that case, Christ was corporally present in the bread and wine. Thomas Cranmer, the principle writer of the earliest Anglican Articles, stated the Anglican position in the following ways,
And although Christ be not corporally in the bread and wine, yet Christ used not so many words, in the mystery of his holy supper, without effectual signification. For he is effectually present, and effectually works not in the bread and wine, but in the godly receivers of them, to whom he gives his own flesh spiritually to feed upon, and his own blood to quench their great inward thirst.(10)
For there is no kind of meat which is comfortable to the soul, but only the death of Christ’s blessed body; nor any kind of drink that can quench her thirst, but only the blood-shedding of our Savior Christ, which was shed for her offences. For as there is a carnal generation, and a carnal feeding and nourishment; so there is also a spiritual generation, and a spiritual feeding.(11)
And therefore as the bread is outwardly eaten indeed in the Lord’s supper, so is the very body of Christ inwardly by faith eaten indeed of all them that come thereto in such sort as they ought to do, which eating nourishes them into everlasting life.”(12)
Here Cranmer denies that Jesus’ human nature is physically present as bread and wine. He affirms, however, that the Lord Jesus works in those who receive the bread and wine. He gives “his own flesh spiritually to feed upon, and his own blood to quench their great inward thirst.” He spiritually feeds those who receive his body and blood, and by means of the bread and wine, he nourishes them “into everlasting life.” Eating bread, or even eating flesh, does not bring everlasting life. Only “the death of Christ’s blessed body, only the “blood-shedding of our Savior Christ” brings eternal life. It was his atoning death that reconciled us to God, and as believers receive the bread and wine, and remember his broken body and shed blood, made a present reality by the work of the Spirit as discussed in Psalm 66, they are nourished into eternal life. This is what is meant in Article 28 by the words, “the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and similarly the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.” This does not mean that the person literally eats or drinks Christ’s body and blood. Outwardly believers eat bread and drink wine. Inwardly, by faith, they are fed and nourished spiritually by receiving in their souls the power of Jesus’ saving death for their sins, thereby reconciling them to God whom they can then know personally as described in Trinity and Incarnation. In light of what we have said before on the soul, the soul is fed by remembering, remembering in the strong form of apprehending the “death of his blessed body” and the “blood-shedding of our Savior Christ.”
This feeding is received in faith. Faith is the active response to God’s grace, his working, his becoming actively present in the person of Christ. Faith is a personal response to a personal God who speaks and acts in the eucharistic feast. One reason the Reformers rejected the Roman teaching was that it tended to make grace something impersonal, something one received by physically eating Christ’s body and blood. But grace is God’s personal action, his coming to us as a broken body and spilt blood. In this event, God reveals his good will, a personal relationship with a God who died that we might live, and the response to God’s action in the Holy Communion is the trust, hope, and obedience of faith.
According to Anglican Theologian, W. H. Griffith Thomas, the early Anglicans and authors of the Articles avoided the term “real presence” in reference to Christ being present in the Eucharist.(13) In their view, the term was ambiguous since it could easily lead to the belief that Jesus was corporally present in the sacramental elements. The Anglican Reformers did not believe that Jesus was physically in the bread and wine because, among other things, he is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. His corporal presence on earth ended with the Ascension. In this essay, I have stated that the person of Jesus is present in the Eucharistic feast. In that context the word “present” means something that has effects. Physical objects are present because they have physical effects, things seen, heard, or touched. But something need not be physically present to have effects. The sun is far away yet has effects. Jesus once said, and this applies to his deeds as well, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). In other words, Jesus’ words and deeds can still effect us. When he ascended into heaven, he ascended with the whole of his sinless life, including the event of his crucifixion as part of his human nature. Jesus may be in heaven, but his body, which was crucified on Calvary, has sacramental effects, and the Holy Spirit uses the bread and wine to make his crucified body a present reality. As described in the essay, Knowing the Christian God, the effects of Jesus’ words and deeds are miraculous, the work of a transcendent God who raised Jesus from the dead and gave him eternal life. Eternal life is not a property of this created world. It is given by miracle and received by miracle. When God acts as the person of Jesus, he creates aspects of eternal life in the lives of believers. This is true because Jesus is alive and active. For that reason, Jesus Christ’s human nature, though not physically present, is spiritually present in the Holy Communion as signified by the bread and wine. He is present because he has effects upon the soul and even upon the body. For this reason Article 28 will say that the “body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only in a heavenly and spiritual manner. The means by which the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.”
Matthew 8:5-13 is the account of Jesus healing the centurion’s servant. The centurion came to him and asked that his servant be healed. Jesus replied that he would go to the centurion’s house to effect the healing. The centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed” (Matthew 8:8). Jesus spoke the word and his servant was healed, even thought Jesus was not physically present at the centurion’s house. In a similar way, although Jesus is in heaven at the right hand of the Father interceding for us, his human nature, as well as his divine nature, has effects on those who receive communion. These redemptive effects are the work of one person, Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine.
This can be restated. Jesus Christ is present in the sense that he has effects on those who receive his body and blood and these effects flow from his person, both the human and divine natures. But the word “present” does not mean that one can actually touch, see, and hear his physical body in the same way in which we sense the objects that currently surround us. Since he has effects on us, it can, however, be said that we see, hear, and touch him as his crucifixion and resurrection become present realities.
When Cranmer states that Christ “is effectually present, and effectually works not in
the bread and wine, but in the godly receivers of them,” this implies that Jesus Christ is objectively present where “objectively” means independent of our own thoughts or attitudes. He may not by physically present, but he is objectively present because he has effects on those who partake of the bread and wine regardless of their attitude. When he is received in faith, he blesses those who receive him. Those who eat and drink but do not remember and come to him in faith, place themselves under judgment. “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself (1 Corinthians 11:29). Or, as stated in Article 29, the “wicked and those who lack a living faith, although they physically and visibly ‘press with their teeth’ (as St Augustine says) the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, nevertheless are in no way partakers of Christ. Rather, by eating and drinking the sign or sacrament of so great a thing, they bring condemnation upon themselves.”
Let us now sum up what happens in the Eucharist. The holy, transcendent God, the Father and creator of all life, sent his Son to die for our sins and reconcile us to God. This person, Jesus, the incarnation of the Word of God, spoke and acted, and his words and deeds are recorded in Scripture. Of central importance were the words and deeds of his crucifixion and resurrection, the event by which he set us right with God. On the night he was betrayed he instituted the Lord’s Supper, promising that the bread and wine would manifest his saving presence. Believers who rightly receive the Holy Communion feed outwardly on the consecrated bread and wine, but inwardly, by their souls and bodies, they feed upon his crucified body as they remember his saving act, his broken body and spilt blood. This partaking is effected by God the Word and God the Spirit. God the Word acts by means of the words of the Great Thanksgiving, the four-fold sacramental actions, the visible bread and wine, and this, by the power of the Spirit, conveys the person of Christ in all his saving effects, past, present, and future As believers eat and drink in a heavenly manner, they are brought into the presence of the living God who, by means of Christ’s sacrifice, once for all given on Calvary, has long ago cancelled their sins and made them his sons and daughters. Filled with joy and desire, to cry out, “Abba, Father,” for they belong, forever and ever, to the one Lord, living God.
There is no better way to end this essay than to quote Richard Hooker (1554-1600), one of the great Anglican theologians and lovers of God. As you read him, you will see that he remembers in the strong sense of Psalm 66. As he partook of the bread and wine, his soul was carried to the cross where he saw the saving event at first hand. Hooker did not believe that Christ was physically present in the Eucharist, nor did he believe the bread and wine were changed by the prayer of consecration. He did believe, however, that the person of Christ, in his two-fold divine and human natures, had effects on his soul as he partook of the body and blood of Christ, and this filled him with the greatest joy.
… the very letter of the word of Christ gives plain security that these mysteries do as nails fasten us to his very Cross, that by them we draw out, as touching efficacy, force, and virtue, even the blood of his gored side, in the wounds of our Redeemer we there dip our tongues, we are dyed red both within and without, our hunger is satisfied and our thirst forever quenched; they are things wonderful which he feels, great which he sees and unheard of which he utters, whose soul is possessed of this Paschal Lamb and made joyful in the strength of this new wine, this bread has in it more than the substance which our eyes behold, this cup hallowed with solemn benediction avails to the endless life and welfare both of soul and body, in that it serves as well for medicine to heal our infirmities and purge our sins as for a sacrifice of thanksgiving; with touching it sanctifies, it enlightens with belief, it truly conforms us unto the image of Jesus Christ; what these elements are in themselves no skill can say, it is enough that to me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ, his promise in witness hereof suffices, his word he knows which way to accomplish; why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this, O my God you are true, O my Soul you are happy.(14)
Let us pray,
Almighty and living God, pour out upon us we pray, your living Holy Spirit that we may enter into the eucharistic feast, and by the power of your Son’s resurrection and ascension, join with all the company of heaven as we laud and magnify your glorious Name, evermore praising thee and singing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts: Heaven and earth are full of Your glory. Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.” Amen.
Questions for Discussion
1. What, in your view, are the most important ideas in this lesson, and do you envision any changes in your life as a result? If so, what are they?
2. In light of this lesson, how can you best prepare yourself to receive the Holy Eucharist? Do you expect the Lord Jesus to come to you in the Holy Eucharist?
3. Remembering Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is something we do by faith. Sometimes Christ comes to believers in the Holy Communion in ways that change them at once by the power of his presence. At other times, we believe by faith that he is active although his effects may be too subtle for us to perceive. Have you ever, in a way that changed you, encountered Christ in the Holy Eucharist? If so, what happened?
4. For how long have you been receiving the Holy Eucharist, and can you tell if regular Eucharist has made a difference in your life? If so, what is that difference?
Endnotes
1. Artur Weiser, The Psalms, A Commentary, translated from the German by Herbert Hartwell, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), pp. 467-472.
2. Weiser, The Psalms, p. 44.
3. Weiser, The Psalms, pp. 469-470.
4. Johs Pedersen, Israel Its Life and Culture, Volumes I-II (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), pp. 162-8.
5. Pedersen, Israel, p. 160.
6. Pedersen, Israel, p. 162.
7. Weiser, The Psalms, p. 469.
8. Many of the ideas of the next few paragraphs are beautifully discussed by W.H. Griffith Thomas, Principles of Theology, (London: Church Book Room Press, 1951), pp. 345-364.
9. Pedersen, Israel, pp. 170-76.
10. Thomas Cranmer, Writings and Disputations Relative to the Lord’s Supper, John Edmund Cox, ed., (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2001), pp. 34-5. In this and the following two quotations from Cranmer, I have slightly modernized Cranmer’s English. Thomas Hall, in his text on the sacraments, will argue that the Anglican Reformers did not fully understand the Roman position. Rome, he says, did not adopt a crude materialistic theory of Christ’s physical presence in the bread and wine. Rather, they understood that the change in the elements at the time of consecration was metaphysical rather than crudely material. This, to my mind, is hardly an improvement. If “metaphysical” means something created, than Christ’s created nature would be present as the transubstantiated bread and wine, and this entails eating and drinking something of Christ’s created nature, an idea that differs little from the crude material view. If “metaphysical” means something uncreated, that is, God himself, then the elements would be changed into God which, theologically speaking, cannot be. In the Incarnation, the human was not changed into the divine, nor can that happen anywhere else. See Francis J. Hall, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 5. The Sacraments, 3rd edition (New York: The American Church Union, 1969), pp. 93-4.
11. Cranmer, Writings, p. 40.
12. Cranmer, Writings, p. 17.
13. W. H. Griffith Thomas, Principles, p. 408.
14. Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity and other works by and about Richard Hooker, Volume Three, Collected by John Keble, Facsimile Reprint, (Ellicott City, Maryland: Via Media, Inc., 1994), V.lxvii.12. In this quotation I have slightly modernized Hooker’s English.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
dr.sanders@globalanglican.org
globalanglican 