Is My Praying Turned Inside Out?

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I wonder if my praying has been turned inside out.  When I began to be involved in a church where we prayed and worshipped liturgically, led as it were by an ordained minister or priest I gradually came to think differently about prayer.  When a congregation gathers to worship God in a liturgical prayer service, we pray as a congregation when we are called to do so.  There is a call to pray.  In the worship service in which I am involved the call to prayer begins when the one leading the service saying, “The Lord be with you.”  The congregants respond by blessing the minister as well saying, “And with thy spirit.” (Some more modern liturgies based on our tradition say “And with you also.”  The minister then says “Let us pray.”  In the liturgical concept of prayer the congregation is called to pray by a minister whose responsibility it is to represent God leading God’s people to pray, but also to represent a church as it responds to God’s call to worship.  That is why so many liturgical churches view their ordained ministry as “priests.”  They are not priests in the sense of being an additional level placed between God and God’s people, but as leaders in a church they serve the function of calling the church to worship and leading the church in the worship.  In our tradition when the minister or priest calls the church to worship he faces the congregation as one speaking to the congregation and when he leads the church to worship in the office of the ministry he faces the front (or the liturgical east unto which we look for Christ) and as one who prays with the church unto God he faces the liturgical east even as the rest of the church does.  The clergyman is not in his own person an intermediary between God and the Church, but in his office he issues God’s call to worship and he leads the Church as a member of the church in making the response to God’s call to worship.

The early church quickly recognized that such a minister was an icon, or a symbol, or an illustration of Christ’s work of priesthood but there was a recognition first strong and later perhaps more faintly that Christ is the ultimate priest who alone as both God and Man calls upon man to pray, and leads men to the throne of God’s grace.  There is but one priest and mediator in that sense between God and man.  But in the ordained office as a pastor, bishop, or presbyter, the man who fills the office is vested in the representation of Christ to call men within the Gospel to pray and to lead men as believers to pray in congregational worship.  This is representative of the work of Christ who truly calls us to pray and leads us in prayer.

A liturgical congregational understanding of worship and prayer has gradually had an impact on how I think about prayer and the prayers by which we enter into the presence of God.  There is a sense in the liturgical understanding of prayer and worship that the invisible presence and invisible reality is as essential to everything done by the congregant and congregation as is the visible reality presented in the worship.  The office of the minister might visibly lead the church, but it is understood that the head of the church represented by the office of the Church is our Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and man.  We may in our descriptions of our clergy describe our clergymen as priests, but this does not necessarily mean that we think the clergyman replaces either Christ as the sole mediator between God and man, nor does the ordained clergyman replace the whole of the church and the whole of the membership of the church as the called priesthood of the believer in the church of our Lord.  It is in their clergy's office that they are called to represents God’s call to the church in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is in that office as leaders who are servants of the churchly priesthood that they lead those who worship to come as one and as all in the Lord's priesthood to the throne of grace.

What I am saying is that praying liturgically in congregational prayers has led me to recognize and realize all the more that my praying is a liturgical response to God’s calling and God’s grace.  I pray not because somehow I decided to take it upon myself to pray, but I pray because God in his grace has turned me from looking to myself for all my own answers in life and has called me to worship him, and to depend upon him for every good gift given from heaven.  Liturgical worship has taught me that God called out to me and said, “The Lord be with you.”  I answered “And with thy spirit” or “And with you also” and then our Lord said, “Let us pray.”  Our truest forms of prayer are when we look outside of ourselves and unto God as God calls us to put away our trust in ourselves and to look to him for every good thing both in heaven and on earth.

A Biblical account which reminds me of this is the account of Christ’s asking his disciples to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus went out to the Garden to pray and asked his tired disciples to pray with him.  But they grew weary and fell asleep.  Jesus, then momentarily separated from his disciples prayed in agony perhaps made aware that the hour was upon him when every disciple would fall away from him and he would go to his suffering as the Lamb of God and the sole mediator between God and man.  He prayed as all his disciples were torn from him, by their weariness or whatever else our excuses might have been that his cup might be taken from him.  He was alone before God, the disciples who would become his leaders of the new church representing Christ had all decided they were too weary, tired, and exhausted to enter the worship to which Jesus called them.  Through this falling away of the disciples and all mankind Jesus was set apart to be the one and only one who could pray to the Father for the well being of our humanity.  It was his hour, the hour when he would become the one and only mediator between God and man, when in Gethsemane he asked his disciples to stay and pray with him, but all failed.  The cup he was about to drink was now clear before his eyes.  He was alone, and no one could join him in his hour of trial.  He was to become the singular Lamb of God who dies for the sin of the world.  No voice could plead for sinners but his.  No good deeds could stand before the throne of God but his.  He asked us to pray with him and none of us, not one disciple answered the call.  Like Israel in the days of Joshua and Caleb, those who refused to follow over into the Promised Land would now have to wait until God in his mercy called us again to pray.  We who so easily turned aside from submitting to his call to prayer cannot of our own will later make amends for failing to pray when the great day of our Lord's testing was upon our Lord.  Rather we must wait to come to the throne of grace until after the Lamb of God has taken our place on the Cross.  We answer the call to the throne of grace after our Lord opens up heaven to us and calls upon us to pray in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and by the Spirit of God.

Something wonderful happened forty days after Christ rose from the dead.  For forty days he remained on earth and made his presence known to his disciples.  His disciples had fallen away, those he had called upon to follow him and to lead his church (once his earthly ministry had ended) had all turned away at Gethsemane.  One of the things we see in the forty days when he lingered upon earth after his resurrection was his reclaiming his downcast and discouraged disciples.  He appeared to Peter and the other disciple on the road to Emmaus.  He appeared to the eleven in the Upper Room, and finally he appeared to Thomas.  If we had followed him in that band of disciples and had failed him as we surely would have on the night in Gethsemane then he would have sought us out.  God’s grace has been described by some as “persevering grace.”  The Lord, who calls his people to himself, does not allow his people to turn away but rather he seeks his own that none may be lost.  He is the good shepherd who seeing one of his sheep fall away from the flock where his life is secured, goes out to find the lost sheep and to bring him back into the fold.  He did that with his disciples after Gethsemane.  He did that with them and it is what he does with us who believe and then stumble, and then find that he calls us back to himself and restores us to the flock.  I suppose that there is in many of us a calling back with each gathering of Christ’s people.  We have through a week’s time both sought the Lord and failed at some time to maintain a proper prayerful joyous attitude in the Lord.  We come back week after week to hear the Lord’s call recognizing that in ourselves we cannot come worthily to the throne of grace.  But the Lord speaking through his church, through his ordained minister, through the Gospel says in effect, “The Lord be with you.”  We hear the gracious words calling us to worship and thankful for such gracious words we reply “And with thy Spirit” or “And with you also.”  Then with bowed heads, perhaps kneeling, we hear those beautiful words “Let us pray.”  The locks on the gate to the throne of grace have been opened by the Son of David who holds the keys of grace in his hands.  He has opened wide the gates and we come into the temple and hear the gracious words “Let us pray.”

Do you see what I mean when I say that in God’s worship what takes place invisibly is as essential as what takes place visibly?  Visibly what takes place is a call to prayer and worship which is issued by a man given the office of the ministry.  But what takes place invisibly is that Christ has called upon us to pray.  Visibly what takes place is that an earthly congregation responds to the call of prayer and worship with prayer and worship; but invisibly there is an intercessor in heaven who is seated bodily on the throne of grace.  He is the one true mediator, fully God and fully man and he intervenes on behalf of men and women, praying continually night and day on the throne of grace where this same Savior and Lord who prays without ceasing has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

If you are beginning to follow the Scripture’s picture of heaven, then you will understand that everything in heaven revolves around this throne of grace where our Lord has been seated and given all authority in heaven and on earth.  As Christ prays in heaven, what happens in heaven?  The cherubim, seraphim, and those spirits of just men made perfect (Hebrews 12:23), the saints around the glassy sea; all are surely gathered around the throne of grace to join their spirits, energies, thoughts, and their wills to pray in conjunction with the great high priest who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  This vision of heaven with the great high priest seated with all authority in heaven and on earth has forever altered my understanding of prayer in heaven.  It has brought to a fresh focus so many issues discussed about the prayers of the various persons and creatures in heaven.

Do the saints pray for us on earth while they are in heaven at this time?  Is that really an issue?  Do we imagine that while Christ is praying earnestly for his whole church, that his church members in heaven are off doing something else?  Surely as our Lord prays so is the church of just men made perfect in the heavenly places also praying.  Surely if our Lord has been granted all authority in heaven and on earth then the angels who are serving him in faithful ministry to him are likewise agreeing around the throne of grace to join their prayers as his servants to his own intercessory pleadings.  Surely if our Lord’s mother who by faith let it be done to her according to God’s word is now in the heavenly places she is making prayers with our Lord Jesus Christ.  All of these things are most surely true but they are most surely true for the simple reason that He who has been made Lord over heaven and earth and has been made the one true intercessor for our sins is praying continually now in heaven, and at the center of heaven as he prays all heaven prays with him.

So I may say boldly that when Christ prays and when the Church on earth prays, so also prays the heavenly host.  Should we ask angels, saints, Mary, and other just men made perfect to pray for us?  I don’t think we need to make such prayers, nor are we shown such prayers in Holy Scripture.  The greater issue though was raised at Gethsemane.  Jesus asked his disciples to pray with him as he prayed.  But when he returned from his anguish-filled praying he found them having fallen asleep.  That is now the great issue for us.  I have no doubt that our Lord in heaven is praying continually without ceasing, night and day, for his church on earth and in heaven.  I have no doubt that the saints and just men made perfect are joining him in his prayers for us.  I have no doubt that the angels on high are praying with him.  I have no doubt that our Lord’s mother, and truly as our Lord’s mother the mother of God, is praying on our behalf as her dear son and her dear Savior leads heaven in prayer as the great high priest.  For the blessed Mary had this disposition when she spoke while on earth saying, “Whatever he says to you, do it.” (John 2:5)  As he prays for us, I have no doubt she prays for us as well.  That leaves only one question to ask.  “Are we seeking to join him in his prayers?"

My thoughts of prayer have been changed by this.  I think of how often I have heard preachers speaking of the power of prayer.  Sometimes all this has been proclaimed in such a way as to lead us to think that through our prayers we are able to get God to do something he would not otherwise do.  But perhaps we have turned prayer and the power of God inside out.  Perhaps the truth is that it is Jesus who is praying all along for all the good blessings that would be ours.  He is doing this because unto this task was he called by His father and it pleased him as much as he pleased his father for there is perfect unity of purpose in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The power of prayer is not that we somehow convince God to change his mind about blessing a world in despair, but rather the power of prayer is that somehow we who are timid and cold and weak are changed as we come into the presence of God and begin to be changed as we submit ourselves to the power of his intercessory prayer as the Great High Priest who alone intercedes on behalf of sinful men.  He alone it was who began to pray his intercessory prayer on our behalf.  But then he began to be joined by a multitude of the heavenly host and the earthly throng until no man that number could count.  The healing of the woman with an issue of blood was a healing that flowed forth from the virtue of Christ as she took hold of his garment.  So the power of prayer is not something which changes the mind of Christ or the will of God, but is rather an outgoing of the energy of the virtue of Christ granted to flow outwards into human lives needing redemption, cleansing, forgiveness, healing, and empowerment.

In recent months I have gotten once more acquainted with an old friend, John Armstrong.  He has in his recent years desired to use much of his strength and energy to encourage the divided Christians whom Christ has redeemed towards unity in Christ.  I think he would agree that few things would more lead to the unity of Christendom than for all of us who name our Lord Jesus Christ as Savior to live in the constant awareness that all of our prayers are brought into existence because there is an intercessor on the throne of grace who is praying constantly and without ceasing.  If that awareness were more fully impressed upon our hearts and minds we would be grieved that the church who has been called to be the bride of Christ has instead of eyeing her dear bridegroom’s face has been fixed on the finery of her own dress.  Is not that the source of so many of our divisions?  We have been thinking to pray in our own ways and have carped at how another who loves Christ has prayed and worshipped instead of realizing that every faithful prayer proceeds faithfully from the energy and potency of our Lord's intercessory prayers.  More than theological discussion papers, our unity will be fostered by an acknowledgement that our unity flows not from our incomplete activities of piety and devotion but from the perfect and holy prayers made in utter grace and issued forth from the lips of our great High Priest’s throne of grace as he prays on our behalf.

The nineteenth century hymn had it right, “the bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom’s face.”  In prayer the men and women who make up the priesthood of the church do not so much think of all their prayers, but rather are to be aware that they have been issued an invitation to pray along our High Priest as he prays without ceasing, day and night, until every last one of his redeemed is to be brought into the heavenly kingdom.  Such prayer is so astounding that at times it is uttered forth in total powerful silence.  We may pray most diligently, when we simply speak no words and determine to wait for Christ to break the silence.  So St. John in the Book of Revelation recorded at times that there was silence in the kingdom of heaven for half an hour.  Do we believe that prayer ceased in that half hour?  Or were these the moments when our Savior's prayers were so intense that they were offered not in words but with a simple stretching forth of pierced hands and feet, and a wounded side that eloquently spoke what no words ever uttered spoke?  If we pray with him we may pray and be silent, but it will not be sleeping before our Lord, but submitting to him in our silence as he prays for the world continually.  It is not we who remind him of the needs of others, but rather it is he who in remembering others places the needs of others into our minds and hearts that we might join him as he prays.

Has my praying been turned inside out or have I merely begun to learn what it is to pray?  I trust that you will take these words and seek God to learn the truth of the matter.

           

A Reasonable Quest for the Impossible;

The Search to Grasp the Logic of the Christian Faith in its varied avenues of Expression

 

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            In my mind one of the most difficult parts of writing is to create a suitable title of anything to be written.  That is certainly true of this article.  I am trying to write an article that discusses how those of us who yearn to understand the Christian faith in its fullness, need in some ways to seek to understand the logic of the faith.  I will try to express what I mean by that through this article.

            This quest was first suggested to me years ago, when I was in college, many years ago now.  A friend, two or three years older than I, and I were talking about the writings of the Apostle Paul.  He was a literature major.  He said to me that he thought he would like to understand Paul’s writing enough, so that he felt as he was reading his letters he could anticipate through an understanding of reading St. Paul what he would say next.  In essence, my friend was discussing understanding the thought of St. Paul enough to be able to anticipate the conclusion of his writing before the Apostle’s sentence finished.  That is, he wanted to understand the internal logic of Paul well enough to draw the same conclusions in his own mind as what the Apostle Paul did in his writings.  He wanted to see within his own thinking a point in which the logic of his thinking was shaped to draw the same conclusions as that of the Apostle Paul.  That has seemed to me to be a reasonable but perhaps almost impossible quest to be pursued.  Over the years, and especially recently I have come to realize that such a quest should not be limited to our understanding of St. Paul’s writings, but to the various expressions of God’s revelation of the matters of the Christian faith revealed once and for all to his people in so many various ways.

            Part of the reason I want to write about this at this time, is because of how some who read my latest blog regarded it.  I write from a different perspective than some of my readers.  I have journeyed into an Anglican perspective after spending much of my life as a Baptist.  In my heart of hearts I want to write in a way that encourages people forwards and upwards in the matters of the Christian faith and life.  We modern Christians live in a setting where there are hundreds of denominations.  I am inclined to believe that God is content to reach out to us where we are, and so He blesses us in our many various denominations, wherever he finds men and women who love Christ, seek to honor him in faith, that sort of faith that has learned to trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus.  So each of us in our many different backgrounds have discovered something of Christ, of God’s love, and an understanding of what it means to be a people redeemed for our Lord Jesus Christ.  I think furthermore that most of us, however we understand this Christian faith into which we have been granted to participate want to understand it more.  So that is where I am trying to write from whether you are an Anglican, Baptist, Charismatic, Pentecostal, Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, or simply a person seeking to learn about Jesus from a background where Christianity has not been part of your life or was once but you left it a long time ago and are coming back for a second look.  You want to understand it more, maybe even to be considering an aspect of the Christian faith and to have the logic of the Christian faith so written into your own mind, heart, and soul as to be able to draw the same conclusions of the faith that are drawn from the great teachers and apostles of the faith.  I think there are a handful of pathways to consider if we want to develop that sort of logic about the faith.

            I can anticipate that some of you might be thinking, “That is way too intellectual of an approach it doesn’t work like that.”  Of course you are right.  The quest we are discussing is a quest for understanding but understanding is always more than an intellectual pursuit.  It was more than an intellectual pursuit for our Lord Jesus.  Understanding the spiritual truth of the faith takes the intellect and yet always requires far more than mere intellectual insights.  Our Lord Jesus came into the world to become human in all ways as we are.  He was the Son of God, fully God as well as fully man, and yet he learned righteousness and obedience not simply through his intellect.  The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered: and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him, called of God a high priest after the order of Melchizedec.  (Hebrews 5:8,9)  So if when I started waxing eloquently about trying to learn the logic of the Christian faith, you began to bristle up and say “Understanding the Christian faith is not by intellect alone” then you were already doing something of what my friend so long ago wanted to anticipate in his understanding of the faith.  You look at something I was saying and anticipated a real problem if we made our quest for understanding the Christian faith a mere intellectual understanding.  It isn’t and cannot be a mere intellectual understanding of the Christian faith, because our Lord Jesus himself grew in stature and wisdom as a man by learning obedience through the things he suffered.  He was a perfect 2 year old, a perfect five year old, a perfect 30 year old, but in between he was learning through his life experiences, his life in a godly family, his contemplation of the Scriptures to grow for the challenges God had before him.  It wasn’t mere intellect, but He was the one who came to understand fully the godly life of faith.  He learned it.  He learned what it was to love God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength.  At twelve years of age he was surprising the teachers in the temple with his questions.  Perhaps the teachers in the temple wondered who was there to ask the questions and who was there to give answers to those with questions.  A child and the rabbis may have come near trading places that day.  But at twelve years of age our Lord Jesus was a child moving towards adulthood asking questions that would help him become an adult ready to enter a three year ministry which would result in the salvation of God’s people.  In a sense it is our desire to so learn to understand the logic and lessons of the faith as we know Christ came to learn and understand in the development of his own human nature.  He was raised by godly parents who instructed him, attended synagogue with others in his community while growing up, asked questions of religious leaders when he had opportunity, and all of this was involved in forming his own human understanding and character until the time came for him to fulfill the Scriptures that he had first sought as a child to learn and understand.  He was the one who had come to understand the logic of the law and the prophets and the wisdom of the sages from the time of Adam to John the Baptist, to learn for his own life and to apply in the ministry of reconciliation to which he had been set apart from the foundation of the earth to fulfill.  When we seek to understand the Apostolic teachings we seek to follow them as they followed Christ and we seek to find the logic of the faith enough to have it direct our paths and become planted in us to the point that we can anticipate the logic of the most holy faith in our everyday circumstances.

            That is what I tried to communicate in writing about Pentecost from a perspective of understanding a church calendar.  I think I did a clumsy job of it.  I am afraid that for people who have learned Christ in a different background where the church calendar was not a significant part of their learning of Christ this all must have seemed strange.  That was not my goal.  Looking back I wish I might have written that article a little bit differently.  But I do think that people without a church calendar could appreciate some of the connections I made between understanding the Passover and Pentecost from their Jewish backgrounds and realizing how Christ came to fulfill both of these great Old Testament feasts.  In the Passover, Israel was saved from the death of their firstborn by the blood of the sacrificed Lamb.  During the Passover our Lord Jesus Christ died and suffered for the sins of His people.  He prayed forgiveness for those who had put him to death.  He promised pardon to a sinner next to him. He purchased us from death and sin with his death on the cross.  On the third day he overcame sin and death and left the tomb having become eternal victor and Lord over sin and death.  According to Luke 1 for forty days he lingered upon earth and taught his apostles about the kingdom of God and the Gospel to prepare them to carry out the Great Commission.  He ascended into heaven on the fortieth day, and then ten days later came Pentecost.  Pentecost was a harvest festival, a time of joy, when the first fruits were offered from the seed that had been sown earlier.  On Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit descended upon the church, filled the disciples and they spoke in tongues to every people in their hearing in their own language as the Gospel began its spread not only to Israel but to all the nations and languages upon earth.  This was the harvest of joy following the sowing of the seed.  Christ’s ministry of being sown into the tomb and resurrected in the Passover had begun to collect its harvest with the saving of three thousand on the Day of Pentecost.  There is a sort of logic between Passover and Pentecost.  That is what I wanted to emphasize.

            Do you understand what sort of logic this is?  It is the sort of logic that connects the purpose of the great events of redemption until there is a sort of logic.  That is why many of us enjoy learning the story of the great deeds of Christ through a yearly passage of the church calendar.  The calendar helps us to connect Israel’s period of waiting for Messiah, with Christmas, and then seeing Christ being manifest in the season of Epiphany, of his undergoing temptation and a struggle with the demons and with his own appetites in a forty day fast during the season of Lent, and then to see His sufferings in Holy Week and his death on Good Friday, and his hours in the tomb on Holy Saturday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday, then on to the day of his ascension into heaven and then to Pentecost.  We learn something of the logic of God’s work of bringing about redemption from the great and mighty acts of God.  There is a logic running between each of these seasons and each of these acts of God in his saving his people through Jesus Christ.  It is not of primary importance if a Christian is in a church which uses the church calendar as a tool to teach and instruct Christians.  I personally like that sort of church, but the important thing is for the believer to understand that there is a sort of logic running between the various deeds of God in the history of God acting on behalf of his peoples’ salvation.  Churches and ministries that don’t make use of the tradition of the church calendar can still draw attention to their people under their ministry how these deeds are connected within God’s saving mighty acts.

            I have to admit that I have noticed often times a weakness in some of the churches like mine which make extensive use of the church calendar.  There is a tendency for such churches to all too often never take the time to have Bible studies of various books of the Scripture.  It would seem instinctive to me that men and women who gather to break bread, to say prayers, and to give themselves to the study of the Apostles’ Teaching would do Book studies from the Bible.  How can we say we are serious about understanding the Apostles’ Teaching if we have never sat down and tried to understand a book written by the Apostle Paul, James, John, Peter, or Jude.  We find these books to be wonderful expressions of the mind and heart of Christ as the Apostles struggle to see Christ formed in the hearts and mind of the people of the early church.  The truth is, you can read a Book like the Book of Romans and come away with some new appreciation of Christ or of the faith every time you read through it.  These books will also help us to think about how we connect the rituals and deeds of God.  How do we understand baptism without understanding St. Paul’s teaching in Romans 6 or St. Peter’s instruction in I Peter 3?  How do we understand the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist if we haven’t contemplated St. Paul’s instruction in the eleventh chapter of I Corinthians?

            My friend, long ago, had grasped that for him to really understand the Christian faith, meant that he needed to think about the Scriptures and the faith until the logic or the connections between one teaching and aspect of the Christian faith helped him understand other teachings and aspects of the faith because he had begun to be so acquainted with the acts and teachings of God that he could anticipate the relationships between the varied mighty acts of God and the various words of instruction taught by the Scriptures.

            I want to leave you with an example of how seeking such an understanding of the faith will enable to see truth in ways we would not have when we started the process of seeking to understand the mighty acts of God or the teachings of Holy Scripture.

            As a Protestant, for many years I read the Apostle Paul’s writing to the Romans and thought in terms of justification, sanctification, and glorification.  That was good.  But I took a class that interested me at a local junior college where someone taught a class about the Jewish background of the Christian faith.  I learned that in the time of the Apostles that within Judaism a new convert to Judaism often had a proscribed set of things he needed to do to convert to Judaism.  First, he needed if he were a male to become circumcised.  Secondly he needed to undergo ceremonial washing by passing through the water.  This was sort of a symbolic representation of leaving Egypt and crossing the sea unto salvation, or of entering into the Land of promise by crossing through the Jordan.  In Christian terms this was a baptism.  Finally the new convert to Judaism was expected to give a gift to the temple while it remained in existence.  In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul was teaching about the Gospel and its implications to a church that included men and women from both Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds.  If you understand this then you realize what a brilliantly written work it was.  If you were not Jewish and did not know much about Judaism you still understood what he was saying because you understood that you had failed to keep the moral understanding of a virtuous man and that meant you were a sinner.  You could understand that as a sinner you had no right to be acquitted by God during the judgment of your life.  But there was justification for Christ had died for our sins.  God had demonstrated his own love for us in the death of Christ for sinners.  You learned that in baptism you were brought into union with Christ’s death for sinners and were meant to come into union with the perfect life of Christ.  So in sanctification your desire in your new Christian life meant to grow in the life of Christ putting on Christ and doing away the sins of the past.  Finally you would look forward to the day of Christ’s glorification when you would be glorified as one of the sons and daughters of God, when the whole world would be redeemed and perfected in accordance with Christ’s redemption, for the whole of creation groans for the redemption of the sons and daughters of God, when the whole world will again be made right according to God’s original design.

            But if you had read St. Paul’s writing as a Jew you might have seen the same letter to the Romans with a bit of a different emphasis.  Teaching the same truths but in terms of Jewish rituals you might have read Romans like this.  If it is important for one to be circumcised it is because humankind has a sin problem.  So circumcision is required, but not a circumcision of the flesh as undertook in the ritual but a circumcision of the heart so that God begins cutting away at our love of things contrary to God’s will.  St. Paul teaches the Jewish man or woman using the rituals they understood from their own connection with Judaism.  Then St. Paul moves from a need for a circumcision of the heart to deal with our sin problem, to baptism.  Here is the second requirement for someone wanting to become Jewish.  St. Paul says basically that the meaning of baptism is to be baptized into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is a new life; a life of union with God in our union with Christ.  Finally, what is the requirement of this new life in Christ discovered through the reality of our baptism?  St. Paul teaches in Romans 12 that we are to become living sacrifices living unto God in Christ.  We are to render our own bodies a living sacrifice.  That is our reasonable spiritual duty of worship according to St. Paul.  So, if you had been reading the Book of Romans as a Jewish man or woman you might have read the book as making three main points: circumcision by the Spirit, baptism into Christ, and rendering yourself a living sacrifice unto God.

            That is part of what I think it means to seek to understand the logic of the Christian faith.  May our gracious Lord impart his wisdom and grant his strength to each of us as we seek to do his will and to understand his ways.  My prayer is that God’s grace would use these words to speak to his people, wherever they may be, even through the weakness of my words and understanding.

Pentecost Understood through the Perspective of the Liturgical Church Calendar

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I write this article recognizing that many and perhaps most Evangelical Protestants do not follow the yearly church calendar that brings forth the rhythm of the focus of worship around a calendar year in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopal, and to a large extent Lutheran, and Methodist worship.   This article is written by one who has a bias towards favoring worship guided by such a traditional calendar.  In fact, I believe that what I am writing about Pentecost is an understanding of the Pentecost event that seems much clearer to me because it is a sort of natural perspective for one to understand who on a yearly basis makes a journey through a church worship year including seasons of advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and a Holy Week in which Jesus is greeted into Jerusalem by the multitudes on Palm Sunday, communes with his disciples at the Last Supper, is betrayed, crucified, laid in the tomb, raises to life on Easter Sunday, lingers for forty days to teach his disciples about the kingdom of God which they are to shortly be given responsibility to proclaim to the nations, ascension, and finally Pentecost.  Making a journey on a yearly basis through seasonal focuses on these highlights of the redemptive work of Christ creates within an observant worshipper a sense of the logic of the events of Christ’s redemptive life.

The understanding of the ancient church regarding these events was that these events had two-fold importance.  First, Christ came into the world to save sinners and he did so by fulfilling the ancient Old Testament Scriptures within these events.  The ancient church, very early formed a church calendar with most of these events included in the annual church calendar.  This was probably a natural phenomenon.  The early church was a Christian church that emerged from within Judaism.  The early Christians, especially those from within Judaism did not see their belief system to be a rejection of Judaism but the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel and to the Jewish people.  So it was natural for Christians to begin to highlight Christ’s fulfillment of Judaism with a calendar of events that corresponded to the ancient Jewish calendar.  Judaism (both past and present) has a yearly religious calendar.  It is clear from the New Testament Scriptures that Jesus was crucified and buried during the Passover.  The Passover was the Jewish celebration of how the children of Israel were spared from the judgment of God upon Egypt during the time of Moses through the painting of the blood of a lamb on their doorposts.  Those households which took the blood of a sacrificed lamb and painted it on their doorposts were spared from the death of the firstborn that night when God acted to redeem Israel from Egypt’s slavery.  Christ was recognized by Christians as the fulfillment of a great type from that ancient feast so central to the religion of Judaism.  Christ was the Lamb of God, slain on behalf of sinners.  We were redeemed by his blood.  St. Peter writes that the Christian has been sanctified (set apart) unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.  (I Peter 1:1-2)  The blood of the Lamb in Moses’ day had been placed on the doors of the household of Israel to set them apart.  The blood of Christ had set apart the believer in Christ as one for whom Christ died and one who was bound through Christ’s death and resurrection to die to sin and to rise in new life unto obedience.

The Jewish religious feasts within ancient Judaism were connected to the observation of the Passover.  This was especially true of the Feast of the Weeks, commonly described by the time of Christ by the nickname “Pentecost” which meant fifty days.  Following the Feast of Passover the Jewish calendar marked off seven full weeks and then on the following day, the fiftieth day after Passover began the Festival of the Weeks or Pentecost.  Pentecost was a harvest celebration.  These harvest festivals were especially festive celebrations.  The Old Testament Scriptures even had provision for part of the religious tithe being spent on wine and strong drink to be used in the feasts.  (Deuteronomy 14:22-26)  That is not to say drunkenness was encouraged, but it is to say that this was a time to be especially joyous and some wine and strong drink were not frowned upon as long as one drank within reason and not unto excess.  Wine was a Jewish symbol for joy.  A balanced understanding of this can be drawn from the Psalms.  Psalm 104 lists a number of God’s blessings upon his people including “wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.”  (Psalm 104:15)  Psalm 4:7 on the other hand recognizes that there is a joy that is deeper than that which can be produced by fine wine and even fine grain.  The Psalmist says in Psalm 4:7 “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.  I will lay me down in peace and sleep: for thou Lord makest me dwell in safety.”  The Psalmist is not contrasting something to be despised against something to be valued; but rather he is contrasting something to be valued as against something beyond what is ordinarily valued.  Wine, a bountiful harvest, sleeping in a secure home in a secure land, are all things the Psalmist values, but in the Lord he has found blessings and peace and joy that far exceed those to be found in the best of ordinary human circumstances.

In the old Jewish yearly calendar Passover was celebrated and then fifty days later would come the Feast of Weeks to celebrate the harvest.  Jesus’ disciples had watched their Rabbi, the one they hoped would be the Messiah, die by crucifixion during the Passover.  He had then risen from the dead and lingered for forty days teaching them of the kingdom of God; and preparing them to take the Gospel of the kingdom of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations.  He ascended on the fortieth day leaving them instructions to gather in Jerusalem and to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Then ten days later, during the celebration of Pentecost when thousands of Jews from both local and distant places gathered in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples.  They began to proclaim Christ and some three thousand souls were added to the church by baptism.

This was a fulfillment of what this harvest celebration connected to Passover meant for the first Christian community.  They had gradually discovered that their Messiah had not been defeated by being crucified, but that he had become the Lamb of God whose blood redeemed men from their sins.  He had risen from the dead and then had lingered on earth for forty days instructing his disciples and telling the church that they had a mission to fulfill in his name, but only after he had gone to the Father and would give them the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It was during the forty days of lingering that Jesus gave the Great Commission to the church that is described in Matthew 28:18-20.  Then on the fortieth day Jesus ascended out of sight into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God and given all authority on heaven and earth.  It is in this capacity that he with the blessing of God the Father and with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit would send the Holy Spirit to guide, govern, encourage, strengthen, and empower the Apostles and the Church to carry out their mission.  Their mission would be the fulfillment of the promise of every harvest celebration ever celebrated in the history of God’s people.  The Church would be granted the privilege of proclaiming the good news of Christ’s redemption, bringing men and women to repent from their sins, to be baptized and set apart for obedience unto Christ, to be called to be a holy people to give praise and honor to God throughout the generations even to the day of Christ.

This is the era of harvest, of Pentecost.  Christ’s work of redemption has been accomplished and now the work done by him is done under his authority as he prays on behalf of his church, makes intercession on behalf of sinners, and as he is present to guide the Church and his people through trials, tribulations, persecutions, and in the harvest so that when all is said and done there will be men and women from every tribe and tongue and nation on this terrestrial ball to give honor, praise, and obedience to their Lord and Redeemer forevermore.  The significance of tongues is as a sign that as God had protected Israel in the midst of nations separated from the commonwealth of Israel for generation after generation (Ephesians 2:12) that with the completion of Christ’s redemptive work and the commissioning of the Holy Spirit to be upon the Church that now was the season of harvest, and this harvest was not to be merely the salvation of the people of Israel but of men and women from all the nations, tribes, and languages of mankind.  This was a season when God’s kingdom would not merely speak the language of Israel but all the languages of the earth would praise God in their own tongues in the name of Jesus Christ.  One day we will all speak the same language in the perfected heavens and earth, at least I think that is so.  But now let us rejoice that throughout this world men and women are praying to God the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit in virtually every language spoken by men and women in this earth that has been redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ.  This is the great gift of tongues that God has bestowed upon the church as he has called men and women from all the nations to believe upon him, to repent from their sins, to live by faith, to live unto obedience to the name of Jesus Christ.

There is a sense in which Pentecost is meant to be the Church’s liturgical response to Christ’s work of redemption set forth throughout the first half of the Christian liturgical year.  Think, especially those of you who do worship using the church calendar how we have made a journey through the highlighted events of Christ’s redemption.  We see Christ’s work highlighted in the first half of the Christian year leading up to Pentecost.  There is a sense in which Pentecost marks the liturgical response of Christians and of the Church to Christ’s redemption.  I will try to explain briefly.

The church year began with the season of advent.  Advent is a period of waiting for the coming of Christ.  Historically, from the time of the first promise of a seed to be born of the woman who would crush the head of the Serpent the people of the Old Testament waited for the coming of their Messiah.  In the Christian year, we begin as the people of God to wait for our Redeemer.  We are a captive people, but not a people without hope.  We have sinned and are worthy of death, but we live under a promise of one who is coming to redeem his people from their sin.

We are brought in our journey of the Christian calendar from Advent to Christmas.  He is born an infant in a manger.  But we know this ordinary little infant, yes he is ordinary fully human, fully vulnerable, fully in the weakness of ordinary humanity in every way – He is yet also even in this manger scene the Emmanuel “God with us” whose name shall be Jesus for he shall save his people from their sin.  For twelve days we celebrate his birth in the old tradition of the Christian calendar, beginning with the lighting of candles near midnight on Christmas Eve to signify that the Light of the Christ has come into the world.  He has arrived.

Following the season of Christmas, we are brought in our journeys of faith into the season of Epiphany.  God announces to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews that Christ is dwelling on the earth.  The wise men see his star and connect it to the promise given to Israel.  They are directed to seek him in Bethlehem by the Biblical scholars in Jerusalem.  Herod is angered because he wants no competitor to his kingly throne in Jerusalem.  Epiphany which means “manifestation” is the season in which God begins to show to the world that this Jesus is the one who has come to fulfill the redemptive plans of God.  In the final days of this season John the Baptist, or as the Eastern Church so wonderfully describes him, “John the Forerunner” proclaims the one who will come and then he recognizes him when he comes to be baptized for the sake of those for whom he came to bring forgiveness or remission of sins.

Then there is a season of preparation for Christ and for us as Jesus goes to the wilderness to fast and to be tested for forty days and nights.  We observe Lent, as he is preparing himself to be our sacrifice and redeemer.  We meet him in the wilderness to prepare ourselves for repentance and faith and seek to prepare ourselves to live in the redemption he is to bring.  We recognize that He must struggle against the beasts of this world, against demons, against every sinful thought, and against Satan who has become the commander of evil in a monumental war against God.  Here is this ordinary man and this Son of God, yes these two natures are neither mixed nor confused but dwelling in perfect union in this Jesus.  Satan tempts him and he answers as a man relying upon the Word of God.  Then when Satan has done his best to get Jesus to sin, in an instant this Man of God and Son of God says to Satan, “Be gone.”  Satan departs.  Jesus is ready to begin his ministry upon earth.  We observe this during the Lenten season as we move towards the culmination of his earthly ministry.  We journey towards Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Good Friday and then to Easter Sunday, and then forty days later to the Ascension and then to Pentecost.

Do you see how Pentecost is the harvest of the redemption of Christ?  It is the Church’s turn to respond to what Christ has done.  We who are the harvest are harvested to bring honor, praise, and glory to our Lord who has ascended on high and has been given all authority in heaven and upon earth.  The Church by the power of the Holy Spirit is given the message of Christ’s Gospel to take unto the nations.  Through this message God will bring Christ’s redemption to mankind that we may by faith respond in obedience to this message and be added to the harvest of Christ’s redemption.

Pentecost looks two ways within the Christian church calendar.  First it is the culmination of the first half of the Christian year.  Christ has done all his work to redeem mankind and now is the season of harvest in which men and women are brought to Christ.  Secondly, Pentecost is the celebration that marks the beginning of the second half of the Christian year.  What was the response of the Church following Pentecost?  They gathered together, to break bread, to say and make prayers, and to hear and study the Apostles’ Teaching.  In the second half of the Christian year, we hear the teachings of Christ in accord with the Apostles’ Teaching.  Pentecost is at once the Spirit of God coming down upon us to reap what Christ has done; and Pentecost is our liturgical response to what Christ has done.  In the midst of Pentecost as the Gospel is preached we who hear the Word of God begin to respond.  We cry out “what must we do to be saved.”  We hear the call to repentance, to faith, to being washed in baptism, saved by the sprinkling of blood; and we give ourselves to gathering together to break bread, to say prayers, to hear the Apostles’ Teaching.  If we have learned this in our journey through the church calendar then perhaps it may be said of us that the Kingdom of God has come upon us in the power of the Holy Spirit through the redemption of Jesus Christ unto the glory of God the Father.  Amen.

Are Sacraments “mere symbols”?

Written by Dan McDonald

 

          It is common among some circles of Protestant Evangelical Christians to exalt the preaching and teaching of the word and to look for signs of spirituality while feeling that those of us who make much of the sacraments simply don’t understand the real spirituality of Christianity.  The thinking is that God isn’t really interested in ceremonies, mere symbols, or rituals.  He sees the heart and he wants faith that doesn’t resort to resting on trinkets, magic incantations, or anything but a spirituality of the heart.  So when those of us who happen to believe that God is present in the sacraments are trying to express what we believe we are often asked a question something like, “Isn’t baptism a mere symbol?”  “Isn’t the Eucharist or if you prefer “the Lord’s Supper” a mere symbol?  I don’t want to be too hard on people who think that way.  I once thought more that way than I would like now to admit.  But now that sort of thinking seems strange to me and I am going to try to say why it seems so strange to me.

          First, does it seem strange that only in religion and in discussing theology we feel this strange need to couple two words together that never go together anywhere else in life?  It is so easy for someone discussing religion to describe one of the religious rituals known as the sacraments as a “mere symbol.”  Have you ever thought how you don’t refer to “Stop Signs,” the letters of the alphabet, the words formed by the letters of the alphabet, the books written with the symbolic words spelled by letters as “mere symbols?  The fact is, in ordinary life we almost always seem to couple “symbols” not with mere symbols, but with actual realities described and expressed in the forms of realities?  Symbols almost always are linked to realities in ordinary life.

          Try an experiment to see how others regard symbols in real life.  If you are driving an automobile and come up to an intersection with a stop sign at that intersection and there is a policeman behind you instead of stopping at the stop sign, push the gas pedal to the metal and squeal out as fast as you can.  Chances are the policeman will prove to be very sacramental in his understanding of stop signs.  He will not be the least amused when you tell him “Sir you do realize that stop sign was a “mere symbol”.  He will tell you something that effectively says, “Yes and its meaning was to stop and since you didn’t I am writing you a ticket and you will need to pay this fine or appear in court on such and such a date to present to the judge your belief that this stop sign is a mere symbol.”  The policeman, and probably the judge as well, and most of everybody you know will probably think you were quite a fool for imagining that a stop sign was a “mere symbol” so you shouldn’t have to stop for it.

          Let’s imagine that a woman is wearing a wedding ring.  Some people I suppose have an understanding that a wedding ring is a mere symbol.  But most people still imagine that once someone has said their marriage vows and a ring has been placed on their finger that the ring that is worn is worn symbolizing something unique and sacred to be shared in by two people and two people alone.  If a guy, whether he hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care flirts and comes on to a woman wearing a wedding ring, what sort of thing is the woman saying, if she raises her hand towards the man and with her other hand points out the wedding ring she is wearing.  Somehow the idea “mere symbol” doesn’t come to mind.  On the other hand if after a heated argument the married woman says some expletives to her husband and says I’m going out and throws her wedding ring on top of a dresser while dressing for a night on the town is that act with that mere symbol meaningless or does it convey all too much meaning?  So what is it about baptism, and about the Lord’s Supper or the Holy Eucharist that has turned these symbols from being symbols with very real meanings into “mere symbols?”  I guess I have lost my ability to think of Holy Baptism or the Holy Supper as mere symbols.  The two words don’t seem to go together any more than stop sign and “mere symbol” or wedding ring and “mere symbol.”

          A lot of churches, where the sacraments are commonly viewed as “mere symbols”, take the preaching of the Scriptures very seriously.  I actually think this is part of the reason why these churches and the Christians in them are often quite blessed even if they disagree with how Christians through the centuries usually viewed the sacraments.  But I wonder if they have thought through why they exalt the preaching of the Scriptures and imagine the sacraments to be mere symbols.  What if they used the same way of viewing the sacraments to look at the Bible and human preaching of the Scriptures?

          Can you imagine how frustrating it would be for a minister to see his wife and children carrying on as if nothing important was taking place while the minister preached the word?  The minister says to his family when they are at home, “Why were you carrying on so while I was proclaiming the Scriptures today?”

          One by one the members of the family talk about how they realized that preaching was just the use of “mere symbols” to point to Christ and so had nothing really at all to do with Christ.  Surprised the minister says, “What do you mean?”

          A daughter says, “Well Daddy remember when I asked you if it is true that the alphabet is a group of symbols representing certain sounds human beings can make?”  The minister replies, “Well yes, the alphabet is a group of symbols.”  An older child then said, so if the alphabet is merely a group of symbols representing sounds then words are merely symbols also, simply names we give to ideas, and if words are merely symbols, then whole books are merely collections of large numbers of mere symbols.  Then the minister’s wife said, “After our discussion I realized that the Bible is as much a collection of symbols as Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  So your preaching must be as much a mere symbol as some ritual like baptism or the Lord’s Supper.”

          Perhaps this is a far-fetched example.  But would people think differently of the proclamation of the Scriptures, of Baptism, of the Eucharist, or of other ministries of the church sometimes described as sacraments if we separated the concept of symbol forever from the slander of "mere symbol"?  We can consider how instead of thinking of Holy Communion as a “mere symbol” we think of it as a true symbol.  Was Jesus saying nothing when he said to his disciples “this is my body” of the bread and then “This is my blood” of the cup?  In some ways isn’t the symbol a reminder to us that He has promised to be present in our partaking of these blessed symbols?  Am I to take and eat or take and drink thinking “this is a mere symbol” or am I to take and eat, and take and drink thinking of him saying “This is my body” and “this is my blood”?  The symbol is important because the symbol is connected and cannot be separated from an unseen but dramatically essential reality.  The symbol of the body and blood of Christ is only so much a symbol as it relates and presents to us the unseen reality that in taking what Christ has offered in this supper we partake of him; of his body and blood unto our present and eternal salvation.

          Once one begins to think in that way, then our thoughts of baptism and the Lord’s Supper begin to be viewed with real substance in the Christian life.  If for instance you are a member of a church that baptized you as an infant, you are reminded by the baptisms of other infants that your parents as Christian parents made vows to raise you in the fear and teaching or admonition of the Lord.  They brought you to be baptized because they believed that God had placed a claim on the offspring of Christian parents so that they were to be raised in the Lord.  Someday you have to decide, in addition to your parents' decision for you, to live as one having been baptized or to reject your baptism outright.  To live as if one is baptized is to live as if one has been baptized into the death of Jesus Christ and to live as if one has been raised in Christ’s resurrection to live a holy life unto God the Father.  Baptism grows in meaning because it was a sign and symbol connected to the reality of Jesus Christ; his life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and resurrection.  The same is true of Holy Communion.  We partake of Christ, he wishes for us to partake of him and to invite him in to our innermost being.  We eat knowing that we live, and have our beings in Christ and that his life is meant to be expressed through us.  Baptism is done once because it is the beginning, the initiation, our birth into the kingdom of heaven.  We partake in the Supper often and continually throughout life because life even once born needs nourished and fed and grace once granted to us needs to be fed and nourished continually if it is to grow and mature unto completion.  We are born into God's kingdom through Christ and we are granted to mature towards Christ, always in Christ.  The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the God-given symbols that both explain and enable the realities symbolized.

          These sacraments furthermore are not private rituals or devotions.  They are meant to be celebrated and partaken within the assembly of the gathered church.  While the quiet time of an individual in prayer and Scripture reading takes place hidden from our brothers and sisters in Christ, the sacraments are partaken in the company of our brothers and sisters in the Lord and in his church.  So, as we partake of the sacraments, we look at ourselves and know that each of us as individuals are no more baptized than our brother or sister, and am given no more truly the body and blood of Christ than others who partook of the supper with faith.  So we are reminded by the sacrament that we are not holier than others but rather are baptized in the same person of Jesus Christ and partake of the same body and blood of Christ as the least among us.  Indeed it is the least among us that Christ wants us to be concerned about, even as we are concerned about ourselves.  How can we doubt that if we partake of the same body in the bread and the same blood of the cup and are washed with the same washing of baptism?

          Do you see why I know longer understand what it means for a sacrament to be a “mere symbol.”  It may be more than a symbol, but even if it were only a symbol then it would be forever linked to that which it symbolizes and could not be regarded as separated from the reality it was meant to illustrate, communicate, and enable.  I believe in the symbol to such a degree that when Christ says “This is my body” that though I do not know how to explain it, that it must be that when I partake of the supper that through this supper I partake of him as he offers himself for us to become in us so that in him we might be transformed into expressions of his life in the world.  Because I believe in the symbol I am assured of the presence of the reality which the symbol communicates.

         In the early or ancient church the goal of worship was to proclaim Christ through Word and Sacrament.  The faith was presented not in intellect alone but also in the power of participation in the sacraments as a Christian community.  Sometimes I am not really sure what I believe about the mystery of the Lord's Supper.  I suppose I believe in the real presence, but I'm sure I would never know how to explain that.  But here is what I think would be helpful if every Christian could say they believe this:  I think it would be a source of great blessing if instead of thinking of the Lord's Supper as a "mere symbol" every Christian reading this article could think of the Supper next time as a "real " rather than "mere" symbol instituted by Christ to enable the faithful in every participation in the Lord's Supper to understand that in the bread and in the cup he presents himself unto us in connection with our salvation, and this is for every one who believing participates in this supper.  Then I think that Holy Communion will be more meaningful and you will see your religious duty not so much in what you do but in your participation in Christ, and you will see your brother and sister more truly as those who with weaknesses just as each of us also has weaknesses.  As we share a supper together of bread and a cup we will visibly be reminded that each of us partakes of Christ for himself and with the greatest and the weakest among us, and that neither the greatest nor the least is to be forgotten as having partaken of the bread and the cup.  We may look to our brethren and realize that as we partook together of this supper we must surely support one another in the life of Christ in which we have together participated.  Then as we partake in a private devotion in the morning or evening hours later in the week we will be reminded that the church gathered in unity remains as truly unified and standing with one another when the church is scattered.  The sacraments will remind us that as wonderful as it is that Christ died for me, it is also as wonderful that he died for my brother and sister; and that beyond death he was raised unto life eternal to be shared in him as one shares a meal of bread and a cup with one another.  This is no "mere symbol" but the presence of inescapable reality assured because Christ himself rose from the dead and gives Himself for us and to us and for our brethren as well.  So I will ask you, do you think this supper should be viewed as a "mere symbol"?