Fellowship and the Lord's Supper

Barnaby Alsop spoke at today's Bradford on Avon Ministers' Fraternal on Blessings and Curses at the Lord's Supper. A very helpful session it was too, giving us plenty to think about and discuss. One thought  that was raised in discussion struck me as especially relevant to the contemporary scene. A friend made this point. It is possible for someone to listen to John Piper (or whoever the favoured preacher might be) sermons from the comfort of his home and so never have to go to church. You can certainly be a 'home alone' Christian when it comes to consuming sermons. But you can't do that with the Lord's Supper. You have to be there with flesh and blood people, gathered around a wooden table and eat a shared meal of bread and wine. 

The internet is a wonderful tool that has made some of the best preaching in English available to a worldwide audience at the click of a mouse. Piper, MacArthur, Begg, Lloyd-Jones take your pick. But remember that listening to a sermon online isn't the same as being part of a worshipping congregation as the Word is proclaimed. Cyberspace is no substitute for being actively involved in a local church that is comprised of real Christians, with all the heartbreak and joy that entails.

The Lord's Supper demands our embodied presence. Your Xbox 360 avatar can't take the Lord's Supper. You can't eat bread and drink wine by posting a status update on Facebook, or by publishing a blog article. Pixels and fibre optics are a poor stand in for real, face-to-face fellowship. Even good old fashioned writing with paper and ink can't take the place of personal 'in the flesh' communication, 2 John 12.  

The Lord Jesus commanded that his people should remember him by eating bread and drinking wine together. This is a physical act with deep spiritual meaning. At the Table the Saviour accommodates himself to us as embodied human beings. The bread that we eat and the wine that we drink testify to the reality of Jesus' incarnation and death. It is the very physicality of the emblems that make the Lord's Supper distinctive as a means of grace. The Word became flesh and shed his blood for us. The objective historical and embodied reality at the heart of our faith is symbolised in rich simplicity  at Communion. 

To withdraw into cyberspace and avoid face-to-face fellowship with other Christians is the ecclesiastical equivalent of  doceticism. Docetics denied the true humanity of Jesus, believing that it was not fitting for God to take flesh. But he did. God created the physical world and declared it 'very good'.  That which sin has spoiled, God by his grace has redeemed and will perfect through the work of Christ and by the presence of his Spirit. We are called to glorify God in our bodies in and through embodied and personal fellowship with the Lord's people. 

Jesus summons his followers to gather and share a meal together. The cup of blessing that we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ. The bread that we break is the communion of the body of Christ. We, though many,  are one bread and one body. We express that oneness in the simple act of eating bread in drinking wine in the presence of one another and the Lord. You can't download the Lord's Supper. 

Bread and grape juice?

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom." (Matthew 26:26-28).

In discussing the Westminster Confession's teaching on the Lord's Supper, Robert Letham adds this footnote, which calls into question the practice of many Evangelical churches,

we note that the elements appointed by the Lord Jesus are "bread and wine" and that the right to determine these rests with him alone, and not with the temperance movement  of the nineteenth century. While Jesus changed the water into wine, the temperance movement changed wine into grape juice concentrate [or Ribena]. No one has any right to change the elements of the Lord's Supper, any more than water may be replaced in baptism by orange juice. To do this is to usurp the authority of Christ. (The Westminster Assembly: Reading its theology in historical context, P&R, 2009, p. 351, n. 76).

John Calvin on the Lord's Supper

The first Communion meal was celebrated by Jesus and his disciples on the night in which our Lord was betrayed, or "Maundy Thursday". John Calvin wrote with great insight on the Lord's Supper. He viewed Communion in the light of the believer’s union with Christ. The risen Jesus is bodily in heaven, but we receive the saving benefits of his body and blood through the Holy Spirit. In the Lord’s Supper we have real communion with Christ by the presence of Spirit. As we eat the bread and drink the wine, we feast upon the Saviour by faith.

The sacraments are defined by the Word and made meaningful in the light of the Bible’s teaching. The Lord’s Supper was given as a visible representation of the body and blood of Jesus. What is taught in Scripture concerning Christ is richly symbolised in the bread and the wine. As the people of God eat bread and drink wine together at he Commuion meal the Lord accommodates himself to our weakness to assure us of his love and increase our faith.

Calvin was concerned that Zwingli’s view of the Lord’s Supper focussed too much on the human side. Zwingli emphasised the importance of our faith, our remembering what Christ has done for us. For Calvin, the Lord’s Supper is much more about Christ communicating his life to us. He said, “the flesh of Christ is like a rich inexhaustible fountain, which transfuses into us the life flowing forth from the Godhead itself. (Institutes Book IV, XVII, 9). He reflects on the Lord’s Supper,

But though is seems an incredible thing that the flesh of Christ, while at such a distance from us in respect of place, should be food to us, let us remember how far the secret virtue of the Spirit passes all our conceptions and how foolish it is to wish to measure its immensity by our feeble capacity. Therefore what our mind does not comprehend let faith conceive – namely that the Spirit truly unites things separated by space. The sacred communion of the flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals in the Supper, and that not by presenting a vain or empty sign, but by here exerting an efficacy of the Spirit by which he fulfils the promises. And truly the thing there signified he exhibits and offers to all who sit down at that spiritual feast, although believers only who receive this great benefit with true faith and heartfelt gratitude beneficially receive it. For this reason the apostle said, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (Book IV, XVII, 10).

In Calvin we have a rich and deeply biblical understanding of the Lord’s Supper. "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes." (1 Corinthians 11:26).