On one level, the sacraments are strange things. We are used to information that we can evaluate and believe or disbelieve. The gospel itself is a message. It tells me about a holy God, my sinful self, and my perfect savior in whom I must have faith. We teach our children Bible stories, and urge teens and adults to read and memorize their Bibles –all communicated information.
The sacraments, however, are different. They certainly convey information, but they have to be interpreted. Sadly, while they are intended to be the articles that unify the body of Christ, we have been divided over their interpretation. Sometimes, Christians have attributed too much to them, and sometimes too little. Roman Catholics interpret Christ’s words, “This is my body” very literally. Though they know that what presents itself on the tongue remains bread and wine, as to what it really is, it literally becomes the body and blood of Christ, and is therefore to be reverenced. Lutheranism does not believe the elements change, but somehow the physical body of Christ, which is everywhere present now, is somehow taken along with the Lord’s Supper. Baptists and others of the “free church” tradition believe that nothing happens at all.
There is even more division over the nature of baptism. Anglicans, Catholics and Lutherans all baptize infants and believe that baptism makes a person a regenerate Christian. Hence they often refer to it as “Christening” or “Christian-izing” a child. Baptists only baptize those who can make a credible profession, and then by immersion only.
We have our own positions on these things, and I think that they are the most Biblical and rational positions to hold. The strength of our position is that we don’t feel the need to explain how the sacraments work –we simply affirm what the Scripture says about them. There is a sense in which the believer does feed on Christ in the Lord ’s Supper –in his heart, by faith. It exists to strengthen our faith, as a visible and consumed word. There is a sense in which we are set apart by the Holy Spirit at baptism –but only faith saves, not baptism. We do these things because we are commanded to. God feeds us as his people with his Word and in our hearts in the Sacrament. God washes us by the internal cleansing of regeneration which is signified in baptism.
Yet, we don’t often value the sacraments as we ought. When I was young, we didn’t miss church on Sundays, but we definitely didn’t miss church on communion Sundays. Reformed Christians have differed on the frequency of the sacrament from quarterly, which was Calvin’s practice but not his preference, to annually (the conservative Scottish position) to weekly (which Calvin and Luther preferred). That does not matter so much, though certainly once per year is too infrequent. What matters is, when we do come together for the sacrament, we realize that God is meeting with us there in a special way. Christ sits as the master of the feast at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in Heaven. He offers himself to us –his blood is true drink and his flesh is true food, he himself spoke those gory words. He hearkens us to remember his sacrifice, he feeds us now in the current moment, and he directs our hearts towards heaven and home, where we eat and drink it anew with him in the kingdom of God.
Likewise, baptism. We are baptized once, often as an infant, and not in our remembrance. It is done to us –it is not something we volunteer to do. In this, it signifies the New Birth, which is not ours to grasp, but is freely bestowed by the Spirit on whomever he wills.
Ministers ought to take the opportunities afforded to us by the celebrations of the sacraments to remind our people what they mean, as well as clarify what they do not mean. Christ gave us these two sacraments as visible signs and seals of the internal realities of regeneration and faith in his atoning work. He uses them not to save us, but to strengthen our faith.
Written by Rev. Kenneth Pierce, Senior Minister, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS
