This morning we will again return to the Augsburg Confession as we continue to wrestle with the question: Why are we here? Last week, we heard the definition of the church that the Confession sets forth. I shared that with all of you because this document is central to our Lutheran identity, and it helps us understand part of the reason we are here. Again, to quote the Augsburg Confession, “It is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be and remain forever. This is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.” Last week, I focused on the preaching of the Word or the preaching of the Gospel. This week, I am going to tackle the second part of this statement: the administration of the sacraments.
Now, I think that most of you know what a sacrament is, but I am going to give you the definition that is set forth in the Apology to the Augsburg Confession. Sacraments are “rites which have the command of God and to which the promise of grace has been added.” Let me repeat that so that we can understand what these are, “rites which have 1. the command of God and 2. to which the promise of grace has been added.” This means God has to first have commanded us to do something, and there are plenty of commands in the Bible. God commanded humanity to get married, be fruitful and multiply. God commanded humanity to follow the Ten Commandments. God commanded humanity to feed the hungry. There are many commands throughout Scriptures, but the majority of these commands do not come with grace attached. Most of the commands come with a threat of punishment if the commands are not followed. Marriage is certainly commanded by God, but there is no promise that “if you get married, your sins are forgiven.” The Ten Commandments are commanded by God, but there is no promise “if you follow these, then your sins will be forgiven.” When you feed the hungry, which again is promised by God, you are not forgiven of your sins. Therefore, there is no grace attached to these commands.
However, in two definite instances, there are definite commands with grace attached. There is a third instance which the which some Lutherans actually label a sacrament, but there is not total agreement about it. But, for now, let’s focus on the definite commands with grace attached. The first is baptism. The command is explicitly given for baptism in Matthew chapter 28 by Jesus, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” We hear in 1 Peter, the promise tied to baptism, “21And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.”
Jesus also gives us the command to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. When He ate the Last Supper with His disciples, Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And then Jesus also said this about the cup, “‘Drink from it, all of you; 28for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Command and promise.
The third instance that some Lutherans call a sacrament is confession of sins. There are numerous places throughout Scriptures where individuals come before God and confess their sins, and the practice of forgiveness of sins handed down to Christians in the office of the keys which is found in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Much ink has been spilled by Lutheran theologians arguing that confession is or is not really a sacrament. I do not wish to enter into those arguments now, but I will say that the reformers expected that we would practice confession on a regular basis.
Now, at this point, I’ve laid out what the sacraments are in the Lutheran church, the next question that we need to deal with is: why do we practice them? Why do we have the sacraments at all? I mean, if we understand that the Gospel is that we are saved by grace alone as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forward as a sacrifice of atonement effective through faith, isn’t this all we need? Don’t we simply need to trust in the promises of Jesus? Isn’t that sufficient?
The answer is yes and no. Our faith in Jesus’ action and not our own is sufficient indeed. Jesus saves us, and He alone. But, remember what I have said before, when we become a Christian, we change our allegiances. We do not live for ourselves. We do not live for anything the world offers. We do not live for our jobs. We do not live for our neighbors. We do not live for money. We do not live for possessions. We do not live for sex or alcohol. We live for Jesus. We live for God. We seek Jesus’ will, and Jesus clearly commanded us to be baptized. He clearly commanded us to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Following Jesus means we do what He asked us to do. Period. To say, “I follow Jesus and am a Christian,” and then refuse to do what He asks us to do is tantamount to playing follow the leader, picking a leader, and then going off and doing your own thing. You weren’t really serious about following the leader in the first place, were you? Christians who say they follow Jesus yet refuse to get baptized or who do not partake in the Lord’s Supper aren’t followers of Jesus. They have not switched allegiances and are living for something else.
But for those who follow Jesus; for those who receive the sacraments, they find that there are tremendous benefits and blessings to receiving them. The Augsburg Confession says this about the usage of the Sacraments, “It is taught among us that the sacraments were instituted not only to be signs by which people might be identified outwardly as Christians, but for the purpose of awakening and strengthening our faith.” Let me repeat that last line for you: the sacraments were instituted to awaken and to strengthen our faith.
I found it very, very fascinating what the Reformers said about this when I was doing my research earlier this week. Remember, when the Reformers wrote these things, there were no televisions. There were no computers. There was no YouTube or smart phones with images and screens. I mean, today, we are bombarded with images over and over and over again. But they weren’t. They were just starting to get books with pictures in them. So, the Reformers said that when the church was administering the Sacraments, people could visually see God at work. Just as the spoken Word appealed to the ears, the Sacraments were a form of the visual Word that appealed to the eyes. If you looked at what was going on with faith, then you were seeing the hand of God operating in the world.
This is why Martin Luther said that when you go to confession and you hear the words, “Your sins are forgiven,” you should hear them as if God Himself were speaking to you. If you can grasp that in your head, then those words become very, very powerful. It is not just a pastor or a confidant speaking those words to you. It is God Himself telling you, “You are forgiven!”
And in Baptism. Oh my, if you can visualize it...If you can get your head around it, then you are witnessing God’s hand coming from heaven and embracing and adopting someone into His family. I remember when I was a kid and we had a baptism in our church, my sister and I would strain and move around to watch as the pastor poured water on the baby’s head. We didn’t quite understand what was happening, but we knew that it was significant. We knew that it was special. Our parents would do whatever they could to help us see, and it is little wonder why. They knew God was acting. They knew God was making an appearance. Do we still have that awe and wonder as we see such a thing?
And Holy Communion. This is where things get really, really good. This is where, for me things get really, really powerful. I mean, if we take what Jesus says as truth, that we are receiving His body and His blood, then this is extremely, extremely significant. This is extremely, extremely important. For in ancient times, the Jewish people believed that blood carried life. They believed that life was extremely sacred because it was a gift from God, and God had mandated in the Old Testament that when an animal was killed that the blood be allowed to go back into the ground. It was not to be consumed. This is why Jews eat kosher meat. The blood has been drained from the animal before processing. Life has been returned to the ground from whence God first created. But Jesus, Jesus changed that in a radical way. Jesus implemented something that was over the top in His day. Through the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus said, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.” Do you realize what Jesus is saying here? Do you realize what Jesus is doing here? Jesus is pouring His life into you and me!!! Try and wrap your head around that for a minute. God, the second person of the Trinity, is pouring His life out for and into you!! God is giving His life to you!!! If you believe that, if you grasp that, how can Holy Communion be anything less than one of the most amazing things that the Church can offer? How can Holy Communion be anything less than one of the greatest things we can offer to the world as Jesus continues to pour His life out for and into us so that we may have our faith awakened and strengthened? If you can wrap your head around it; if you can understand what is going on here, I don’t know how it is possible to not be filled with awe and wonder.
And I wish that I could explain to you how this happens. I wish I could tell you exactly how Jesus makes Himself present in the bread and wine. I wish I could tell you exactly how He pours His life into you. I wish I could tell you how God reaches down in baptism and adopts the person being baptized. I wish that I could tell you how He manifests Himself in the water and through the Word. I wish that I could tell you how it is that He speaks through us in the forgiveness of sins. But I cannot. And the kicker is, no one can. This is why, if you trace the root of the word Sacrament back to the Greek, you will find that it is rooted in the Greek word mysterion. That’s a word that you shouldn’t have too much of a difficulty translating. Mysterion means exactly what it sounds like. Mystery. It is a mystery. This is why we say that the Sacraments must be received in faith. You and I must trust that what Scripture says is happening in these events is happening in these events. We can’t scientifically prove it, we simply have the evidence passed down to us from Jesus Himself.
And I have to say that I have changed when it comes to administrating the Sacraments. I used to be rather quiet in regards to how often we should offer them as a congregation. I used to just remain quiet and allow the church to decide for itself how often it wants to celebrate the sacraments. And, I’m not going to force you to change your practice. But I’m going to gently urge you to practice them as often as we worship. I’m doing so because I cannot find a single spot in the Lutheran Confessions which says it is acceptable to skip Sundays with Communion. The Confession calls for weekly celebration–even daily celebration of Holy Communion. Martin Luther said that our preaching should have everyone begging for the Sacrament. The documents in the ELCA that I swore to uphold and teach when I was ordained call for weekly Holy Communion. Now, you are free to choose how many times we have Communion. I’m not going to force you to change. This is your decision. And I understand that it means more work for those who are on altar guild. I get that. And I also understand those who say that when we have communion more frequently that it somehow lessens its specialness. I understand but do not agree. For at Holy Communion, at Baptism, at Confession, God is essentially telling us over and over again, “I love you.” And for those of you who have a significant other, did it become any less special when he or she told you “I love you” day after day after day? Or did you need to hear it? Did you long to hear it? And how much do we need to hear God’s “I love you” to us?
We need it. Oh how we need it. And this is why the Sacraments are part of the reason we are here as a church. Amen.
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