Getting the Gospel Back at the Lord’s Table
— Thursday, April 9th, 2009 —
A little bit ago, I wrote here about the scandal of the infrequency of the Lord’s Supper in so many American conservative Protestant churches. It’s a gospel issue, I believe. Our eucharistophobia atrophies gospel preaching in our churches more than I think than we realize. But imagine how you could reclaim the gospel focus of the Supper in your church.
Pastors and church leaders will need to explain the meaning of the Supper clearly, both for lifelong members and for those who are new to the faith or to the church. This should happen not simply at the taking of the Supper, but in the regular preaching and teaching of the church, and in new members’ orientation and so forth.
The Lord’s Supper then should never be seen to be an afterthought, tagged on to the end of a service, perhaps after the final musical number of a visiting youth choir. This doesn’t mean the Supper needs to take a great deal of time. There’s no mandate to have a “special Lord’s Supper service,” and that certainly doesn’t seem to be the pattern on the early church from what we know both from the New Testament and early patristic writings.
The Supper should require though the same pattern as the Passover and Jesus’ institution of the Supper: explanation of God’s redemptive act followed by the enactment of it in the meal. Sinners shold be called to see in the bread and the wine their own crucifixion through the crucifixion of the Christ in whom they are hidden (Col. 3:3). It should be an opportunity to present to sinners the tangible evidence that their transgressions are forgiven.
Imagine, for instance, a pastor at the beginning of the Supper assuring men and women in the congregation who were responsible for abortions in their pasts to trust in the Christ whose body was broken and whose blood was shed for the remission of all their sins, including this one that dare not be named.
This Supper of blood and flesh drives us in faith to confess our sins, and to rest in Christ. It serves to convict us of the truth that we approach God through a veil of blood and death; we don’t stand before him with our own covenantal righteousness. In this sense, we are similar to our old covenant ancestors who were reminded by the slit throats of goats and calves that they were sinners reconciled to God.
Our eating of bread and wine is not a sacrifice, because we cannot repeat the infinite sacrifice of Jesus (Heb. 9-10), but it points us backward to the truth that we come to know God now only because of a judgment that fell on our King at Golgotha.
In 2004, filmmaker Mel Gibson released his film The Passion of the Christ, a project derided by critics as sadistic and gory. The film, with its intense depictions of the bloody sacrifice of Christ, resonated with Christian audiences, especially evangelical Protestants, across America.
Could it be that, for many Christians, this film was a visual reminder that theirs is a bloody religion, a truth too long obscured in our churches except in occasional evangelistic presentations to unbelievers? Could it be that this longing in evangelical audiences is the result of a loss of the Lord’s Supper as a robust and meaningful proclamation for the bloody death of our Christ, a death that was his triumph?
Amen! Thank you, Dr. Moore, for both your recent posts on reclaiming the importance of the Supper for congregational life. Indeed, it is a gospel issue. It will be interesting to know what kind of response you receive from your constituency. I pray it is favorable.
Great word! Could it be that we have made this ordinance “boring” for our people? There just isn’t any excitment around this special time! We are lethargic when it comes to the Lords Supper…and I am not talking about the people in the pew but the pastor who is leading! We need to see this as a time of great excitment for the body. We should be broken over our rejection of our God but then we should be rejoicing as we see the gospel put on display through the taking of the Supper together.
What about methods? It seems that in most churches the method of taking the Supper together is rigid. Those who are more “traditional” (I place that in quotations because the five year old emerging church that has done it their way for the past five years has its own tradition) view those who do not use their method as unbiblical or,at best, immature in thier faith. Those who take the Supper in “new” ways see those who are more traditional as outdated and legalistic. Both sides need to retain the principles and show grace in methodology.
We need to create a referential attitude, a broken spirit, and an excitment around this time of worship together. And this needs to happen often!
Absolutely. The funereal atmosphere of the Supper is exactly one of the reasons for its lack of frequency. Here’s for the Supper as what it really is, a victory meal!
Would I be correct in assuming that the current form in which most Protestants celebrate the Lord’s Supper is one of the remaining vestiges of Catholicism, i.e. the priest placing a small wafer on the tongue as opposed to the breaking of bread in a congregational meal? If so is there any way that we should change the prevailing form in which we practice this ordinance so that its form better serves our theology?
Your commentary on the success of the Passion with protestant evangelicals is incredible. There is so much to think on in regards to the seeming substitution of the images of the movie in place of the bread and the wine.
I’ve read your position in the 5 views book in the past and I may just need to reopen that book, but I was wondering if you have further thoughts on the process of changing a church’s culture in regards to the Lord’s Supper (maybe also from the perspective of what one can/should do as a pastoral staff member but not the senior pastor).