To remember, in this day and age, tends to be thought of exclusively as a cognitive enterprise, as an exercise of the mind done in quiet solitude. From a biblical perspective, however, remembering is nothing of the sort. To remember in the Scriptures is to recall and retell the past for the benefit of ages to come. It preserves the significance of the past by handing it down to the future; remembering is in the act of retelling. In this way, remembering is confessing; it is proclamation.
And so it is also with what we do in remembrance of Jesus. For while we are remembering what happened, namely, the piercing and nailing of his body, the spilling of his blood upon the ground, we are not simply remembering. We are proclaiming. We are proclaiming that unjust and violent death, the execution of that innocent man. But we are not mourning. For in that terrible and frightful event, God spent his wrath. His justice was satisfied–his law kept and fulfilled. We proclaim that this death is good and blessed and that by it we have been saved.
And that is not a past event. It is now. For what happened then, happens now to us, in the eating and the drinking, in the remembering and proclaiming. And it happens now because this bread we break and eat, the cup we bless and drink, is not a symbol of what he gave, but it is what he gave upon the cross: his life. We eat and drink the life-substance of the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord!
The Holy Communion is the abiding presence of that once-for-all sacrifice. It is food for life. It bestows forgiveness. It joins the believer to the one believed in. It delivers not mere morsels, crumbs from heaven, but the children’s bread. It is strength for the journey, encouragement for the battle, a promise of the future. Here, the living Lord, makes a pledge of glory to come and provides a foretaste of the Feast to come.
Here beneath these signs are hidden priceless things to sense forbidden; Signs, not things are all we see: Blood is pour’d and Flesh is broken, Yet in either wondrous token Christ entire we know to be. (Thomas Aquinas, Lauda Sion Salvatorem)
It works its good by a physical mode. It is not the same to think about Christ’s death as it is to receive the life-substance of him who died and rose again. What was done to him was done in the body, physically. And so it is that the benefits of what was done to him are given to us in the body, physically. Sin and death and Hell are not simply spiritual problems, but physical problems. They are whole-person problems and they need a physical, whole-person solution.
Our Lord didn’t just think us better from far away, but became man, took up our flesh, and is still, in his glory, in his exaltation, man in flesh. The one who ate broiled fish and whose wounds were felt by St. Thomas, still has a body, still has blood. And that, by grace, for mercy’s sake, is what he gives to us and by it we are cleansed, purged of our sins, delivered from the iniquities and shame of our petty, selfish lives, not by the conversion of divinity into flesh but by taking up the flesh into God.
Very bread, good Shepherd, tend us, Jesu, of Thy love befriend us, Thou refresh us, Thou defend us, Thine eternal goodness send us In the Land of Life to see. Thou who all things canst and knowest, Who on earth such Food bestowest, Grant us with Thy saints, though lowest, Where the heav’nly Feast Thou showest, Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia. (Thomas Aquinas, Lauda Sion Salvatorem)
And this is what we celebrate on the Feast of Corpus Chrisit: a feast both to God and to men, for it is the feast of Christ the Mediator, who is present in the sacred host, that God may be given to man, and man to God. Divine union–such is the dignity to which man is permitted to aspire; and to this aspiration God has responded, even here below, by a gift that is all of heaven–the Holy Communion. Eat this bread; drink this cup; believe in Jesus. You will live forever.
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Corpus Christi has far too much wrong theology and practice attached to it that I do not think it can be rescued for the Lutheran Church. And when I have a Roman Catholic Oratory in my neighborhood parading, literally, the host in streets, inviting catholics and non-catholics alike to venerate and then to come and partake in the Mass, we find ourselves compelled to teach and preach against such misuse. I do not disagree with anything you say about the celebration of the Eucharist, and yet, it can all be said–and should be proclainmed–within the context of the (weekly) Divine Service.
There are several advantages to a Lutheran celebration of this ancient feast in our times. Here are what I see as the main two.
1) In the recent past (300 years) the Holy Communion has suffered a great deal of abuse and neglect from Lutherans. By God’s grace, this is being rectified by an ever-increasing offering of the Holy Communion in the LC-MS, but without a real emphasis on the centrality of the Holy Communion as evidenced in the Holy Scriptures, the Fathers, and Martin Luther’s Theology, the Church will become a sect. Thus does a celebration of this ancient feast help to confess against those abuses and rightly honor what God has given us for us in the Holy Communion.
2) Besides falling in Holy Week and therefore being a somewhat subdued celebration, Maundy Thursday is too brief an encounter with the Institution. To celebrate Maundy Thursday again, but outside of the ceremonial strictures of Holy Week, 2 months later is a very salutary thing.
We are proclaiming that unjust and violent death, the execution of that innocent man. But we are not mourning. For in that terrible and frightful event, God spent his wrath. His justice was satisfied–his law kept and fulfilled.
Where in any law is there provision for executing an innocent man?
Was not God’s justice satisfied by Christ’s having offered perfect obedience, on behalf of us all? Then what was left to be wrathful about or to punish?
God’s law required perfect obedience OR death, not both. Had He exacted both, it would have been *illegal.
Not to mention immoral and unjust.
Anastasia Theodoridis last blog post..Quote from St. Augustine
Anastasia,
Christ was a scapegoat. Our sins were credited to him. His righteousness is credited to us. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Cor. 5:21 [show]2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (ESV)
There’s got to be a better way than that to interpret this verse. For several reasons.
First, nobody ever says, “Behold the Goat of God!” Jesus died as the Lamb of God, and specifically the Passover Lamb (I Cor. 5:7 [show]1 Corinthians 5:7
) , whose blood kept death at bay, whose flesh nourished the people for their journey home. The scapegoat, by contrast, was not slaughtered, but presented to the Lord alive, and then released alive into the wilderness. (Lev. 16:10 [show]Leviticus 16:10
)
Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (ESV)
but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. (ESV)
Second, we’re still back to asking, if God imputed our sins to an innocent man and then killed Him on their account, how can that possibly be thought of as justice?
And if Christ’s perfect obedience was offered on behalf of all, how can we assert that God’s justice needed anything more?
“And Samuel said, Has the LORD [as great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey [is] better than sacrifice, [and] to hearken than the fat of rams.” (I Samuel 15:22 [show]1 Samuel 15:22
; see also Psalm 50:9-15 [show]Psalm 50:9-15
, Psalm 51:16-17 [show]Psalm 51:16-17
, Isaiah I:10-20, Jeremiah 7:22-23 [show]Jeremiah 7:22-23
, Hosea 6:6 [show]Hosea 6:6
)
And Samuel said,
"Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
"If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.' (ESV)
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Third, don’t Lutherans (unlike the Orthodox) believe hell, too, is a matter of God’s wrath? So how do you say He expended it all on Calvary?
Back in February, in response to an earlier post here, I offered an Orthodox interpretation of 2 Cor. 5:21 [show]2 Corinthians 5:21
). It avoids all these difficulties (and many more). You can find it at http://anastasias-corner.blogspot.com/2008/02/he-who-knew-no-sin-became-sin-for-us.html
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (ESV)
Anastasia Theodoridis last blog post..Quote from St. Augustine
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