Eucharist

First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope you all had a peaceful end to your year. Emily and I were able to come home for the week, trading time between our families…a couple days here a couple days there. We’re very thankful our families live in the same city. Through all the chaos we ultimately had a very lovely Christmas, being able to spend time with just about everyone. But it’s back to Durham, NC tomorrow and back to the ‘Salt Mines.’

Some of you have been reading these posts pretty regularly, being very patient with me as I try to sort through everything I’m learning at Duke Divinity School. It was a very intense semester, but it was also incredibly rewarding. I just wanted to thank all of you who are reading these posts, especially to those who offer feedback. While at Duke, surrounded by people who live in the ‘Duke world,’ I often find myself speaking the same language with everyone else. It’s so refreshing to have people from the outside world ask questions and offer criticisms or raise points of thought because it interrupts that ‘Duke language’ I previously mentioned; I thank my wife for this constantly.

With that said, I wanted to share some thoughts I had while attending church on Christmas Eve. Em and I attended the same church where we basically grew up. It has grown from a humble beginning to one of the largest churches in Birmingham, AL. It draws largely from the Southern Baptist tradition, but also differs from the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) on a couple of minor points (but not by much). Incidentally, we took Communion during the Christmas Eve service. Now, keep in mind I’ve just come home from a Methodist/Ecumenical seminary where the Eucharist is big deal. Combine that with my Anglican/Catholic leanings and you’ve got someone loaded up on all types of ideas, none of which are very present in a traditional Baptist church. This says nothing in criticism of the latter, only of the condition in which I find myself, trying to make sense of various theologies and age-old teachings of the Church. I only said all that for the sake of context.

As we took Communion, our Pastor quoted from Scripture the passage where Jesus administers the first Eucharist. As he spoke those words, however, he accidentally misspoke and said, “This represents my body…” I seriously doubt anyone else in that whole service cared, but remembering the context I mentioned above (and because I’m a theological nerd) it mattered a lot to me. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus tells the disciples that the bread “is” his body and the wine “is” his blood of the new covenant. I only mention this because I wonder if the Baptist church (and any church that does not celebrate Communion for the sake of God’s Incarnation and only for a type of memorial celebration) is missing out on some very powerful truths that the Church believed in and upheld for well over a thousand years and even after the Reformation.

For Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran and other churches the Eucharist is celebrated every Sunday and on other certain special days. The altar or table is at the center of the Church, and the pulpit where the priest stands to preach is usually off to the side. They do this because behind the Gospel, behind the Crucifixion, behind everything we celebrate as Christians, is the foundational truth that God became human. Jesus Christ took on the likeness of human nature, uniting fully the nature of God and humanity. This is the Incarnation. If Jesus had not become human, then the Crucifixion would not have ‘worked.’ Salvation could not have been offered to humankind. The Father poured out His wrath not only on Christ, but on humanity. Christ was not only the perfect Son of God, He was the perfect human. Without the Incarnation, Christianity falls.

In order to experience this truth, each and every Sunday, the fore mentioned churches celebrate the Eucharist. In this Sacrament, the Church believes that the substance of Christ replaces the bread and the wine. By ‘substance’ I mean the identity of something. Think of your first name. What makes you, ‘Joe’ or ‘Brad’ or ‘Jason’ or ‘Angela?’ We each have identity. But we also have ‘accidents,’ or traits which have nothing to do with our identity. For example, I have reddish hair and am tall and have two eyes and a mouth and am wearing shoes. None of these things make me ‘Brad;’ none of these traits give me identity. Change my hair color, put me in a wheel chair, ruin one of my eyes and take off my shoes, and I’m still ‘Brad.’ Now think of the bread and wine. They are ‘bread and wine.’ We might say they taste like bread and look like wine, but these are only traits that we expect from bread and wine. Now, when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, and they ‘become’ the body and blood of Christ, they do not look, taste, or feel like human flesh or human blood. None of the accidents, or traits, have changed. The only thing that changed is their identity. They look, feel, and taste like bread and wine, but now they ARE the body and blood of Christ. Before we roll our eyes, though, and say this is crazy, think of your own identity. I am ‘Brad.’ But, because I’m a Christian and because I am a part of the body of Christ’s headship, I am also ‘Christ,’ in the Mind of God. Christ takes on our identity and gives us his own. He makes us righteous not because we magically are perfect now, but because Christ becomes our righteousness. Christ becomes our new identity. I still look, feel, and act like ‘Brad,’ but now ‘Christ’ has taken over my identity.

SO…this exact thing happens when we celebrate the Eucharist. It is the Incarnation, being given for the sake of the Church, always remembering and acting into God becoming flesh and giving Himself up for us all.

This is far too long, and I thank you for reading these thoughts. Please let me know what you think…I’ll finish the thoughts later. Godspeed in all things…