“It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s Word and sacrament.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together.
I was thinking about beginning our service next week with these words. And then that little word “sacrament” tripped me up. As a Lutheran, Bonhoeffer is referring to the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. For him, it’s a time when grace is imparted to those partaking of the Supper.
We Baptists aren’t sacramentalists—we don’t belief that the sacraments are inherently efficacious. In other words we don’t think that grace is imparted just because you happen to be in the same room in which the bread is broken***. So the word sacrament might trip up a few Baptists.
So I started thinking about how I could still use the quote but explain it a bit for our context. Then I started thinking about how we don’t even observe the Lord’s Supper weekly and so we don’t always gather for “the sacrament”. And then Bonhoeffer’s words hit me.
Why don’t we observe the Lord’s Supper weekly? I’ve heard the arguments—that it becomes just a rote practice and it slowly loses it’s meaning over time. But I wonder if we’d have that same belief if we thought this was going to be our last Lord’s Day to gather together. Would we want to be certain to gather at the table?
I think part of the reason we only observe occasionally is because we assume we get to come back next week. There’s no need to break bread together today because we’ll have another opportunity later. If we do this weekly then it’ll become a habit and a meaningless ritual, we argue. But that’s only true if we we’ve somewhere stopped believe that this is our last meal together with our beloved family.
I know it’s difficult to hold the tension of joyful anticipation and somber reflection week after week. But I believe it’s the pattern of the New Testament. In my mind, occasional observance of the Lord’s Supper is the fruit of a comfortable Christianity that no longer has a war-time mentality.
My mind was moved this way by Bonhoeffer’s words. “Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen lands stand alone.” We are taking for granted this blessing of gathering weekly. And it’d do us well to assume that each weekly gathering could be our last. And what better way to symbolize this than to proclaim the Lord’s death through bread and cup until he returns?
I’d be remiss to not also mention that this doesn’t mean our service needs to be somber every single week. In fact I don’t think the observance ought to be incredibly somber. We are to do this in remembrance of Jesus and what He has accomplished on our behalf. This does not evoke mere sorrow but a deep and abiding joy. When we remember Jesus hopefully it isn’t regret and pain and sadness which comes to our mind but rather the exuberance of a living hope. I don’t see why we wouldn’t want to engage in this weekly.
The Lord’s Supper isn’t boring. I am. That’s why I need it weekly.
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Photo source: here
***We have, in my opinion, over-emphasized this point so far that we’ve almost made the Supper meaningless. We believe that the preaching of the Word carries with it power and grace and that God’s Word never returns void. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that the proclamation of the Lord’s death through the symbolic Supper is really much different.
