Tuesday, January 04, 2005
You, Me & the Real Presence
My next couple of posts are bound to get me in trouble, but I'm blogging anyway...
Even though I am in a Reformed church, I must confess that Lutheran theology attracts me like a moth to the flame. First off, Martin Luther is a personal hero of mine. Second, the whole emphasis of Lutheran theology is on God, not us. God in the Word, in Baptism, in our vocations, and specific to this post, in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
The Lutheran doctrine of the Real Presence is quite misunderstood. I do not know why this is so because their catechism is quite clear.
Q.287 What does Christ give us in this sacrament?
A. "In this sacrament Christ gives us His own true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins."
Matt. 26:26,28 "This is My body.... This is My blood."
So, Christ's body and blood are really in the Sacrament, or as Luther famously put it, "in, with, and under the bread and the wine".
Now, I am not here to debate whether or not this doctrine is correct, and I am most certainly not saying I hold to it. But, let me explain why I think this doctrine makes a lot of sense to me.
At church on Sunday, we had a lesson in Sunday school on the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23-35). The main focus of the lesson was that we were the ones who have been forgiven much. Our debt of "ten thousand talents", which we all have, has been erased completely. Gone! Our sin is taken away in Jesus' cross. This idea, then, should lead us to be forgiving to others as God would have us do. It is exactly at this point that the Real Presence seems attractive.
I have felt for a while that all the talk that evangelicals give about the seroiusness of our sins is all theoretical and abstract. The idea of our sins forgiven seems even more abstract to me. I know I am forgiven, but all this knowledge is in my brain. But when we start talking about the Real Presence, of Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper, then our sense of how bad sin is and how wonderful forgiveness is grow exponentially.
Think with me in an "inner monologue" of sorts...
"You are a sinner! You have lied, cheated, stolen, committed adultery, dishonored your parents and worshipped false idols. You constantly make a mockery of Christ and His gospel. Yet, worry not! For Christ is here, here in the bread and the wine, the common meal of Christians. He calls you to repent and then he tells you that your sins are forgiven. He is here. Really. He is here. You are really a sinner but you are really forgiven. See, He died for you, and even though you sin, He still loves you and calls you to a more fervent love of God and your neighbors. As Christ has done for you, go and do likewise."
The doctrine of the Real Presence really seems to give life to our sinner-ness and God's forgiveness. It adds so much, and I wonder, "Am I missing this?" For, there is nothing better to here at the end of a service, having known all your sins and known God's forgiveness and tasted the goodness of God, to hear from God, through the minister, "Go in peace."
God's forgiveness is then no longer abstract, but real, and I am again spurred on to good works by this forgiveness.
What are your thoughts?
Even though I am in a Reformed church, I must confess that Lutheran theology attracts me like a moth to the flame. First off, Martin Luther is a personal hero of mine. Second, the whole emphasis of Lutheran theology is on God, not us. God in the Word, in Baptism, in our vocations, and specific to this post, in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
The Lutheran doctrine of the Real Presence is quite misunderstood. I do not know why this is so because their catechism is quite clear.
Q.287 What does Christ give us in this sacrament?
A. "In this sacrament Christ gives us His own true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins."
Matt. 26:26,28 "This is My body.... This is My blood."
So, Christ's body and blood are really in the Sacrament, or as Luther famously put it, "in, with, and under the bread and the wine".
Now, I am not here to debate whether or not this doctrine is correct, and I am most certainly not saying I hold to it. But, let me explain why I think this doctrine makes a lot of sense to me.
At church on Sunday, we had a lesson in Sunday school on the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23-35). The main focus of the lesson was that we were the ones who have been forgiven much. Our debt of "ten thousand talents", which we all have, has been erased completely. Gone! Our sin is taken away in Jesus' cross. This idea, then, should lead us to be forgiving to others as God would have us do. It is exactly at this point that the Real Presence seems attractive.
I have felt for a while that all the talk that evangelicals give about the seroiusness of our sins is all theoretical and abstract. The idea of our sins forgiven seems even more abstract to me. I know I am forgiven, but all this knowledge is in my brain. But when we start talking about the Real Presence, of Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper, then our sense of how bad sin is and how wonderful forgiveness is grow exponentially.
Think with me in an "inner monologue" of sorts...
"You are a sinner! You have lied, cheated, stolen, committed adultery, dishonored your parents and worshipped false idols. You constantly make a mockery of Christ and His gospel. Yet, worry not! For Christ is here, here in the bread and the wine, the common meal of Christians. He calls you to repent and then he tells you that your sins are forgiven. He is here. Really. He is here. You are really a sinner but you are really forgiven. See, He died for you, and even though you sin, He still loves you and calls you to a more fervent love of God and your neighbors. As Christ has done for you, go and do likewise."
The doctrine of the Real Presence really seems to give life to our sinner-ness and God's forgiveness. It adds so much, and I wonder, "Am I missing this?" For, there is nothing better to here at the end of a service, having known all your sins and known God's forgiveness and tasted the goodness of God, to hear from God, through the minister, "Go in peace."
God's forgiveness is then no longer abstract, but real, and I am again spurred on to good works by this forgiveness.
What are your thoughts?
// posted by BLP @ 4:44 PM 
Comments:
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Too glib, Doc NOS, too simple by half. Brandon has a point here, one which I do not agree with as such but one which does not deserve the belittlement that you have given it.
The question I ask, Brandon, is this -
What would happen if you remove the religious connotations and incentives, and did "good works" and "right actions" simply because they are the right things to be done.
Then, if you do a "wrong thing" you should appeal first to those wronged for forgiveness, before forgiving yourself.
It happens too that if someone should "wrong" you, then you should be forgiving in your turn.
But that sounds too much like religious teaching. No?
Now, in those terms how does one define "right" and "wrong"? Again very simple -
If an act is one that I would consider a "wrong" when it is done to me, then it must be "wrong" when inflicted upon any other person.
If an act is one that I would consider "right" when it is done to me, then it must be "right" when done to another person.
Are there shades of grey and "excuses"? Not, I think, if one is honest with oneself.
And there, I suspect, is the greatest wrong of all.
If you can not be honest to yourself, how can you be honest in judging any other man?
The question I ask, Brandon, is this -
What would happen if you remove the religious connotations and incentives, and did "good works" and "right actions" simply because they are the right things to be done.
Then, if you do a "wrong thing" you should appeal first to those wronged for forgiveness, before forgiving yourself.
It happens too that if someone should "wrong" you, then you should be forgiving in your turn.
But that sounds too much like religious teaching. No?
Now, in those terms how does one define "right" and "wrong"? Again very simple -
If an act is one that I would consider a "wrong" when it is done to me, then it must be "wrong" when inflicted upon any other person.
If an act is one that I would consider "right" when it is done to me, then it must be "right" when done to another person.
Are there shades of grey and "excuses"? Not, I think, if one is honest with oneself.
And there, I suspect, is the greatest wrong of all.
If you can not be honest to yourself, how can you be honest in judging any other man?
Brandon,
Despite having hi-jacked your post with my comment, I must add that the metaphor of the Sacrament is one of the most beautiful that has ever been devised.
It occurred to me over the weekend -
The First Sacrament - am I right that Christ could have celebrated this at the time of the Passover? The timing between Passover and Easter seems about right to me. If so then the "bread" would almost certainly have been unleavened. Is it still so? I do not know. There is a second possibility that the bread was like a "sourdough". Thoughts on this?
The second is the nature of the wine that would have been used. I read an article recently on the history of wine which proposed inter alia that the ancient wines ( he was speaking of 1400 and earlier ) were most likely to be far more "acid" (and hence sour) than present day wines, almost unpalatable to modern tastes excpet as vinegar. The reasoning was that there was nowhere near the control on the fermenting yeasts that there is now.
The reason for raising these two questions is the idea that there may have been a further level in the metaphor of the Sacrament - that of taste. The combination of unleavened or sour bread, the very acid and astringent wine, would certainly ring in my mind of a man who had little need of earthly concerns; a reminder (as the unleavened bread of the Passover is for Jews) of poverty and hunger; and too perhaps a statement of "solidarity" (to use the modern concept) with the poor and oppressed of Israel under Roman rule.
Your thoughts?
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Despite having hi-jacked your post with my comment, I must add that the metaphor of the Sacrament is one of the most beautiful that has ever been devised.
It occurred to me over the weekend -
The First Sacrament - am I right that Christ could have celebrated this at the time of the Passover? The timing between Passover and Easter seems about right to me. If so then the "bread" would almost certainly have been unleavened. Is it still so? I do not know. There is a second possibility that the bread was like a "sourdough". Thoughts on this?
The second is the nature of the wine that would have been used. I read an article recently on the history of wine which proposed inter alia that the ancient wines ( he was speaking of 1400 and earlier ) were most likely to be far more "acid" (and hence sour) than present day wines, almost unpalatable to modern tastes excpet as vinegar. The reasoning was that there was nowhere near the control on the fermenting yeasts that there is now.
The reason for raising these two questions is the idea that there may have been a further level in the metaphor of the Sacrament - that of taste. The combination of unleavened or sour bread, the very acid and astringent wine, would certainly ring in my mind of a man who had little need of earthly concerns; a reminder (as the unleavened bread of the Passover is for Jews) of poverty and hunger; and too perhaps a statement of "solidarity" (to use the modern concept) with the poor and oppressed of Israel under Roman rule.
Your thoughts?
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