The Sacraments
Messenger Dox
Call to worship:
psalm 136
pastor Andrew loginow
Baptism s:
dr. Al loginow
song:
Jesus Messiah
Historical reading:
Westminster Confession of Faith ch 27, articles 1, 2, & 4
pastor Zachary mcguire
song:
Lord have mercy
New members Covenant:
pastor brett eckel
Confession & Pardon:
pastor michael champoux
song:
Doxology
song:
Christ the sure & steady anchor
Sermon:
The Sacraments
1 Cor 12.12-13
dr. Al loginow
I would not have guessed that I would be using two Les Mis illustrations in as many months but here we are. If you’re unfamiliar with the plot of Les Mis you can Google it or go back on our website or Facebook to our Law and Gospel sermons we did last month; I walked through the plot there. One of the most important scenes in Les Mis happens at the beginning when Jean Valjean is released from prison and has no where to go because of his criminal record. Valjean stumbles upon a church initiating a musical number entitled, “The Bishop.”
The bishop welcomes Jean Valjean to stay at the church and sings one of my favorite lines in the entire show. The bishop tells Jean Valjean, “There is wine here to revive you. There is bread to make you strong.” Those lyrics speak to something good and true and beautiful about the sacraments.
Last week we began an 8-week summer series on the character and qualities of the church. What are the characteristics of a faithful church? Our first topic in this series was the preaching of the Word of God because there is no more important task a church has than to preach the Word of God. Preaching is the center of a local church; the pulpit is the heartbeat of the church and everything else flows from the pulpit.
This morning we move to the second most important element of the local church – the sacraments. The sacraments are where the mystery of the gospel becomes tangible. In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper all of the history, theology, and mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes real for us. The Sacraments are where the past and the future of the Kingdom of Christ break into our present moment. Let us consider together 3 reasons why the sacraments are essential for the local church.
The Sacraments are Essential because Christ Commanded us to Keep Them
First, the sacraments are essential because Christ commanded us to keep them. For two millennia Jesus’ last recorded words in the Gospel of Matthew have been referred to as the Great Commission. Jesus said,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28.18-20).
Jesus explicitly commanded his church to practice the sacrament of baptism as the church disciples and teaches all the nations.
The most recognizable instructions in Scripture about the Eucharist are found in 1st Corinthians 11.17-34. Five times in this pericope Paul uses the phrase, “when you come together” (vss. 17, 18, 20, 33-34). The Bible clearly commands and assumes that each local church would observe the Lord’s Supper every Sunday as the Word of God is preached. Paul also quotes Jesus’ command:
“This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11.24-25).
The command, “do this” is the Greek word, ποιεῖτε. It is a 2nd person plural present active imperative verb. What does that mean? Let’s break it down. First of all, it’s a verb; something we do. Second, it’s an active verb, not passive. It is not done to us; it’s something we actively do.
Third, it’s an imperative. That means it’s a command. Jesus isn’t describing what some people might do. He’s commanding that it be done.
Fourth, it’s a present verb. It’s not something people merely did in the past. It’s not a future verb; something people might do in the future. It’s a present verb. For all time the command is to presently do it every time we come together as a church.
Finally, it is a 2nd person plural verb. It’s not a second person singular “you;” like, you, Alex, do this. It’s a second person plural; like, y’all do it. Christ Community Church, you all do this whenever you come together as a church. Jesus explicitly commanded the church to keep the sacraments.
The Sacraments are Essential because They Uniquely Embody and Preach the Gospel
Not only are the sacraments essential because Christ commanded us to keep them, but also because they uniquely embody and preach the gospel. The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the sacraments in this way:
“Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace. They were instituted by God along with that covenant to represent Christ and his benefits, to confirm our position with and in him, to demonstrate a visible difference between those who belong to the church and the rest of the world, and solemnly to engage believers in the service of God in Christ according to his word.”
There are only 2 biblical sacraments – baptism and the Eucharist. These are the only 2 signs and seals given by Christ himself to the church to be signs and seals of the new covenant. Augustine, the most influential of all the Patristics, defined the sacraments as an outward and visible sign of an invisible yet genuine grace. The sacraments uniquely embody and preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The gospel is the good news that even though God is our holy creator and we, his creatures, sinned against him when Adam fell, the eternal second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. His name is Jesus of Nazareth and he lived a truly human life, yet without sin (Heb 4.15). He died on the cross bearing the wrath of God for the sins of his people. He was buried and on the third day he rose again from the grave.
And everyone who will repent of their sins and trust in him alone will be saved. To repent means to confess that you are a sinner and turn from your sin. If you do, you will recieve the forgiveness of sins and the hope of resurrection and eternal life in the new world when Jesus returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. Even now if you will know these truths, ascent that they are true, and trust in Christ, you will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10.13)!
The sacraments embody this good news. Baptism is the initiatory rite into the local church. Just as we come out wet when we are naturally born, so also the waters of baptism signify our spiritual birth. We pattern the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in baptism. It does not wash away original sin, as the Roman Catholic Church has taught, but it signifies that in Christ alone our sins are washed away.
Baptism is the initiatory rite into the local church and the Holy Communion is the continuing rite of the local church. At the Lord’s Supper every week we spiritually feast on the body and blood of Christ. Jesus is our daily bread. In Holy Communion we weekly commune with the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ. At the Eucharist we give thanks to God weekly for his inexpressible gift! The Lord’s Table is our weekly family meal with our Father and elder brother by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The sacraments embody the gospel but they also preach the gospel. In the waters of baptism and in the bread and wine we see, feel, and taste the gospel. There is no one who has ever come away from the waters of baptism dry. There is no one who has ever come away from the Eucharist without digestion. Christ left us the sacraments so that we can be reminded that the gospel is real. As real as water is wet, as real as the bread and wine taste, the gospel is that real.
The church has always baptized in water. Christians in the past have even broken icy waterbeds so that they could practice baptism. The first time I ever administered baptism as a Pastor was at the little country parish where I preached before God called me back to Christ Community Church. I was understandably nervous because it was my first time so I asked Bethany if I could practice on her. She graciously agreed so the night before we went down to the church where the baptistery had already been filled. What we didn’t know was that the heater hadn’t been turned on yet. Well, Bethany is no wimp so I practice baptized her in cold water. She stands in line with the saints of Russia past who broke ice to baptize their people. And the waters of baptism remind us, as real as those experiences are, as real as Russian believers breaking ice to follow Christ in baptism, as real as Sophia, and Stella, And Arron, and Emily had to dry off after they were baptized this morning, as real as water is wet, that’s how real the gospel is.
Likewise for the Lord’s Supper, the bred and wine not only teach us of the body of Christ broken for us and the blood of Christ shed for us but the taste and texture of the bread and wine remind us of the tangibility of the gospel. The elements of bread and wine were universally prescribed and used in every Christian church in history until the middle of the 19th century when some Liberal Baptist influenced by the American temperance movement replaced wine with unfermented grape juice. This was not the case with all Baptists though, as some continued to urge the use of wine, arguing that the Lord himself commanded wine. The use of unleavened bread and wine carry distinct gospel meaning in the sacrament. The bread is unleavened because leaven represents sin and the body of Christ was without sin. The bitterness of the wine represents God’s wrath against our sin that is only propitiated by the blood of Jesus.
Also, if someone ever tries to tell you that the wine in the Bible was unfermented or no alcoholic, don’t listen to them. The Hebrew word for wine in the Old Testament is יַ֫יִן. It means wine and is, at times, associated with people getting drunk. People can only get drunk if there’s alcohol in the wine.
The Greek word for wine in the New Testament is οἶνος. It also means wine and is associated with people getting drunk. In fact, Paul rebukes the church at Corinth for getting drunk on wine at the Lord’s Supper. There is a word in koine Greek for unfermented juice from grapes (τρύξ) but it is never used in the LXX or the New Testament.
The point is that the elements of the sacraments – water for baptism, bread and wine for communion, are part of the embodiment and preaching of the gospel. These elements picture the meaning and tangibility of the gospel. But there is theology contained in the nature of the elements themselves. Thus in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper believers remember and proclaim redemption in Christ because the sacraments uniquely embody and preach the gospel.
The Sacraments are Essential because They Characterize God’s Family
The sacraments are essential because Christ commanded us to keep them, they are essential because they uniquely embody and preach the gospel, and finally the sacraments are essential because they are the characteristics of the family of God. We read from 1st Corinthians 12.12-13, which says,
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
Here Scripture uses sacramental language to describe our unity in the church. We were all baptized into one body. We were all made to drink of one Spirit. In our baptisms, in our eating and drinking of the Eucharist, we are united in the body of Jesus himself. The sacraments are our uniting family characteristics.
Everyone has family characteristics. You have the nose of one of your grandparents, or you do something in an annoying way, just like your parent, or if you put a wig on him, he looks just like his sister. We all have family resemblances. In the church the sacraments are our family resemblances.
We all come from different walks of life; different ethnicities, different socioeconomic statuses, different political affiliations, but we are all baptized into one body. We all eat and drink from the same table. Just as we’re all born of our mother into this world, so we all come through the waters of baptism into the body of Christ. So also, the name the Lord’s Supper evokes the family dynamic. God is our Father and we are his family. We are the bride of Christ. And we weekly have supper with each other and with our triune God.
There’s a 15th century painting by Russian artist Andrei Rublev called Троица [tru-itza] or “The Trinity.” The piece portrays 3 men sitting at a table. When you consider the perspective of the viewer (you!) there are 4 people at the table. Rublev’s point was that in salvation we’re invited into the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We enact this reality each week at the Lord’s Supper. We dine with our God!
The Lord’s Supper is also called Holy Communion. Paul writes the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ (1 Cor 10.16)? The word participation is the Greek word κοινωνία. In the Vulgate the Latin word is communicatio. This is where the name Holy Communion derives. It speaks to the fellowship that we have with Jesus Christ. There is a unique covenant presence of Jesus in the Supper. Biblically speaking, the fellowship that we have with the risen Christ is in the sacrament – Holy Communion.
We also call it the Eucharist. The word Eucharist is a transliteration of the Greek word εὐχαριστία, which means, “to express gratitude for benefits or blessings; to give thanks.” It comes from the synoptic Gospels when Christ gave thanks after he broke the bread and raised the wine. Eucharist reminds us that the supper is not always or merely a somber sacrament. It is a table of joy and thanksgiving. Low churches have a history of making the Eucharist more of a funeral luncheon than a wedding banquet. When we do so we neglect much of why Jesus left it for us. The Eucharist is to be a weekly catalyst of joy and thanksgiving!
The sacraments are our family resemblance. We come into the family of the local church through the waters of baptism. We then feast together every week at this holy meal. That’s why the sacraments are for the church. Baptism and Communion are not for individuals or a small group of friends as they gather, or for Para church ministries like camps or college gatherings; they are for the gathered church. The sacraments are the family characteristics of God’s people.
Conclusion
The Sacraments are where the history, theology, and mystery of the gospel become real to the church. Baptism and the Eucharist are the places where the past and future of the gospel break into the present. The Sacraments are essential to Christ Community Church because they are our distinguishing marks. They are our family traditions that set us apart from the world. They bring us into the family of God and they sustain us. The Sacraments are the only tangible expressions of the gospel that Jesus left us.
When accompanied by the Word, the Sacraments embody the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even now as we take the Eucharist together it is our weekly way to remember and respond together. We respond to the Word through our obedience to take Holy Communion every week. We remember his body broken for us and his blood shed for us. The late Anglican Priest Thomas McKenzie said, as we walk up to the Lord’s Table with each step we respond and we remember.
And we will forever. When Christ returns he will preside over an eternal Eucharist where we will remember and respond to the gospel forever. The Lord’s Supper is our weekly rehearsal dinner for the eternal marriage supper of the Lamb. It is Jesus’ weekly declaration that when he returns he’s throwing an eternal party and all of the drinks are on him. And so as we come to the Holy Eucharist this morning remember, there is wine here to revive you. There is bread to make you strong.