The Sacrament of the Altar. The Lord’s Supper. The Eucharist. The blessing of all blessings that the Lord Jesus Christ has given to His Church. Throughout our Lenten journey through the Paschal Mystery, the sermons on Sunday have been focused on this particular Sacrament. So far the posts on this blog have also been prepared in regard to a more in-depth study of the Lord’s Supper. Here are the questions we will now consider: 1) When does the sacramental union of the Body and Blood of Christ with the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist begin? 2) How should we handle the elements used in the Sacrament?
While it might seem obvious, it’s important to note that our Lutheran Confession admit only the fourfold account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25) as the only source for the doctrine of the sacramental union. Now, the tenses of the verbs used in each Scriptural account does not render it possible to arrive at a conclusive answer to the question of the exact moment.
Two weighty doctors of the Lutheran Church provide insightful declarations that no dogmatic answer to this question can be given. Johann Gerhard (1582-1637) writes: “[Christian simplicity] is not gravely concerned about the moments in which the Body of Christ begins or ceases to be present, but just as the mode of the presence defies research, so also it declares that these questions about the moment of the presence are unanswerable.” Johann Wilhelm Baier (1647-1695) similarly asserts: “[It is] not necessary to define the moment of time in which the Body and the Blood of Christ begin to be sacramentally united with the bread and the wine.”
Martin Luther and his supporters (ourselves as well, as we are the inheritors of the faithful doctrine of the Lord’s Supper) rightly held that the sacramental union of Christ’s Body and Blood with the bread and wine is accomplished in close temporal and causal connection with the recitation of the words of institution.
Throughout his writings, Martin Luther insisted that after the words of institution were spoken, by the power of God’s Word, the true presence of Christ’s Body and Blood had been united to the bread and wine. Particularly interesting writings include his 1520 On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, where Luther affirmed that the Body and Blood of Christ were present at the time of the elevation—when the pastor raises the host and the chalice after the words of institution. Luther’s catechism sermon on the Holy Eucharist (September 25, 1528) describes the Body of Christ as clothing itself with the bread when the Word is added to the elements.
While we cannot definitively state the exact moment that Christ’s true Body and Blood are present in the Sacrament, we do know that after the words of institution are spoken, and before the elements are placed into our mouth, Christ truly is present. Article X of the Augsburg Confession asserts that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present in the Lord’s Supper under the form of the bread and wine and that they are distributed to and received by all the communicants. The assertion that Article X of the Augsburg Confession implies that the Body and Blood of Christ are present “in the hands of the administrant as well in the mouth of the communicant” was endorsed by the 22 LCMS participants (including C. F. W. Walther) in the second assembly of the Free Evangelical Lutheran Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, Oct. 28 to Nov. 4, 1857.
How then should we handle the elements used in the Lord’s Supper? With supreme reverence and care! For we know that the true presence of our Lord Jesus Christ is present! Here is a story that helps to shed some light on this topic. In 1542 at St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg, Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen were celebrating the Lord’s Supper with the parish. A woman communicant accidentally bumped against the chalice as she was kneeling down so that some of its contents spilled upon her clothing. Luther and Bugenhagen assisted in wiping off the woman’s jacket. After the celebration Luther had the affected portion of the lining of the jacket cut out and burned, along with the wood that he had shaved from the part of the choir stall upon which the contents of the chalice had likewise been splashed. In 1530, Luther had a host which had been placed into the mouth of a dying parishioner burned because the individual died before he could swallow.
The continual tradition of the Lutheran Church has been to display great care and reverence to the elements used in the Lord’s Supper. At St. Mary’s Lutheran Church in Wittenberg—and wherever the Lutheran Reformers taught—the preferred practice for treatment of the remaining communion elements after the last parishioner communed was to have them consumed by the pastor(s) and elders. Luther and Bugenhagen explained that to avoid having hosts left over they counted out the hosts to match the number of communicants at each service.
So here we see the great and deliberate care that is taken when handling the elements used for the Sacrament of the Altar. We are careful and reverent because the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is present with the bread and the wine. People loved by God, when you come to altar and receive the host and the wine…you hold Jesus in your hands! There He is! Exactly where He has promised to be. And He delights to come to you in such a way to deliver to You forgiveness, unity with Him, His divine grace, and the promise of eternal life. You hold in your hands the most sacred and precious thing in all of the world! And you get to place that treasure of infinite worth into your own mouth!
In summary: As Lutherans we cannot assert less than that the true Body and Blood of Christ are truly and essentially present in the Eucharist and that with the consecrated bread and wine they are distributed to and received by all who use the Sacrament.
Any attempt at defining the precise moment at which the sacramental union begins—at consecration, at the beginning of distribution, or any point in between—must remain in the realm of theological opinion.
Finally, we must be sure to also handle the communion elements with the utmost care and reverence. Rejoicing in the great gift that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself delivers to us. May we all look forward to receiving this blessing of all blessings again soon!