Mid Lent 3
How
can bodily eating
and
drinking do such
great
things?
3/26/25
Forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation – those are the benefits
of the Sacrament of the Altar that we confess in the Small Catechism. These are blessings that give us peace with
God. They are blessings that are true
now, but also extend into the new heavens and new earth which God will bring
about when Christ returns on the Last Day. These are mighty blessings that
affect both the spiritual and the physical, since we are people who are body
and soul.
However, in the Sacrament all that we see is bread and wine. We eat
bread and drink wine – and not very much of it at that. The question naturally
arises, “How can bodily eating and drinking do such great things?” How can the simple act of eating bread and
drinking wine give forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation?
The Small Catechism answers this question by saying,
“Certainly not just eating and drinking do these things, but the words written
here: ‘Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.’ These words, along
with the bodily eating and drinking, are the main thing in the Sacrament.”
In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther directs out attention
to the words of Jesus Christ. Our Lord said that the bread is his body that was
given for us. He said that the wine is his blood shed for us. As we heard last week, it is Christ’s word
that causes his body and blood to be present. This word first spoken at the
Last Supper continues to have the power of the Lord each time it is spoken in
the celebration of the Sacrament.
It is only the word of Christ that can do this. The Large Catechism
says, “we do not claim this of bread
and wine – for in itself bread is bread – but of that bread and wine that are
Christ’s body and blood and that are accompanied by the Word. These and no other, we say, are the treasure
through which such forgiveness is obtained.
This treasure is conveyed and communicated to us in no other way than
through the words ‘given and shed for you.’”
Jesus does not only say that it is his
true body and blood. He says that it is
his body given for you. It is his
blood shed for you. Christ identifies it as his body given into death on
the cross. It is his blood shed on the
cross.
During Lent we are preparing to remember
that death. At Christmas we celebrated
the wonder of the incarnation as the Word – the Son of God – became flesh. God became man without ceasing to be
God. True God and true man, Jesus Christ
lived without sin in our world.
He did because we are people who do
sin. In thought, word, and deed we
do not love God with all that we are. We
do not love our neighbor as ourself. As
we confess at the beginning of the Divine Service using the words of the
apostle John: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us.”
Jesus had no sin. But God the Father sent him to take our sin
as his own. The apostle Paul wrote: “For our sake he made him to be
sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God.” The holy and just God executed
his judgment against your sin when Christ died on the cross. Through this action Christ atoned for your
sins. They no longer stand as a barrier
between you and God. Instead, you now
have forgiveness.
Jesus suffered and died for us. And then on Easter, God raised him from the
dead. The sin of Adam brought
death. But Christ has brought life
through his resurrection because he is the firstborn from the dead. His resurrection is the beginning of the
resurrection that we will experience on the Last Day.
Our Lord says that in the Sacrament it is
his body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of
sins. As we noted last week, Christ
gives to you the very price he paid – the very means by which he won the
forgiveness of sins. He puts it into your mouth as he applies that forgiveness
to you as an individual.
It is Jesus’ word that causes the
Sacrament to be his true body and blood.
Our Lord says that it is body and blood, given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of sins. And like all of the Means of Grace, this Gospel gift is
received by faith. The Small
Catechism says, “Whoever believes these words has exactly what they say:
‘forgiveness of sins.’”
We believe Christ’s word in the
Sacrament. We believe him as he tells us what it is, and what it does. We believe that it is the true body and blood
Christ, because he says it is. We
believe that through eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ we
receive forgiveness, because this is what Jesus promises. We believe that this gift is given to each
one of us because Jesus says, “for you.”
Our faith does not cause the Sacrament of
the Altar to be the body and blood of Christ.
The Lord’s word does that, no matter whether you believe it or not. But faith must be present if the bodily
eating and drinking are to do the great things of giving the forgiveness of
sins, life, and salvation. The Large Catechism says, “And because he offers and
promises the forgiveness of sins, it can be received in no other way than by
faith. This faith he himself demands in
the Word when he says, ‘given FOR YOU’ and ‘shed FOR YOU,’ as if he said, ‘This
is why I give it and bid you eat and drink, that you may take it as your own
and enjoy it.’ All those who let these
words be addressed to them and believe that they are true have what the words
declare.”
Faith believes Christ’s word about what
the Sacrament is and what it does. Faith
believes that this is the gift “for you.”
And so faith wants to receive the Sacrament of the Altar.
The Sacrament is Christ’s gift that he
gives to the Church. It is also a gift
that needs to be used. Three factors
should lead us to receive the Sacrament frequently. First, there is our need. We face the continual struggle against sin in
this fallen world. We need forgiveness
for the ways we fall into sin. We need
our faith to be nourished and strengthened so that we can live as the sons and
daughters of God.
Second, we have Christ’s command that we
are to receive the Sacrament. As the Large Catechism says: “In the first
place, we have a clear text in the very words of Christ, ‘DO THIS in
remembrance of me.’ These are words that
instruct and command us, urging all those who want to be Christians to partake
of the sacrament. Therefore, whoever
wants to be a disciple of Christ – it is those to whom he is speaking here –
must faithfully hold to this sacrament, not from compulsion, forced by humans,
but to obey and please the Lord Christ.”
Finally, we have Christ’s promise of
forgiveness. We have the promise that
here we receive the true body and blood of Christ, given and shed for you for
the forgiveness of sins. We have the
promise of Christ being bodily present with us, and so encouraging us in faith
as we look for his second coming on the Last Day.
For these reasons, frequent reception of
the Sacrament is a characteristic of the Christian life and persistent
rejection of this gift is not the action of faith. As the Large
Catechism comments, “Nevertheless, let it be understood that people who
abstain and absent themselves from the sacrament over a long period of time are
not to be considered Christians.” Faith says “yes!” to Christ’s gifts and it
does not reject them.
Faith wants to receive the body and blood
of Christ.
From
the time of the New Testament, the Church has celebrated the Sacrament every
Lord’s Day – every Sunday. This is a practice that the first Lutherans
continued as they confessed in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession: “Among
us the Mass is celebrated every Lord’s day and on other festivals, when the
sacrament is made available to those who wish to partake of it, after they have
been examined and absolved.”
In an unbroken line from Christ’s institution of the Lord’s Supper
until today, Christians have celebrated the Sacrament every Sunday. The reason for this is very simple: the
Church makes use of this great gift by which she has the assurance that the
Lord comes into her presence each week in His true body and blood, and delivers
forgiveness. Our Lord wants to give this
gift, and the Church joyfully answers with the “Yes!” of faith. We believe that bodily eating and drinking
can do such great things because we have faith in our Lord’s words: “Given and
shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
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