...Today our churches pause to remember St. Justin, the Martyr. Here's the little bio from our Synod's web page:
June 1
Justin, Martyr
Born at the beginning of the second century, Justin was raised in a pagan family. He was student of philosophy who converted to the Christian faith and became a teacher in Ephesus and Rome. After refusing to make pagan sacrifices, he was arrested, tried and executed, along with six other believers. The official Roman court proceedings of his trial before Rusticius, a Roman prelate, document his confession of faith. The account of his martyrdom became a source of great encouragement to the early Christian community. Much of what we know of early liturgical practice comes from Justin.
Justin is of special importance for students of the liturgy because of the rather full description he gives of early Christian worship, a description that rings quite familiar to all who know the pattern of Lutheran liturgy (or any of the historic liturgies of the church)!
"And on the day called Sun-day an assembly is held in one place of all who live in town or country, and the records of the apostles or writings of the prophets are read for as long as time allows. Then when the reader has finished, the president in a discourse admonishes and exhorts us to imitate these good things. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers; and we said before, when we have finished praying, bread and wine and water are brought up, and the president likewise offers prayers and thanksgiving to the best of his ability, and the people assent, saying the Amen; there is a distribution, and everyone partakes in the elements over which thanks has been given; and they are sent through the deacons to those who are not present."
6 comments:
Pastor Weedon,
I know Justin Martyr was one of the first early Fathers after the Apostles who believed in the real presence of Jesus in the bread and wine? Did he go as far as to describe the bread and wine as a sacrifice in the liturgy?
In Christ,
John
The early fathers are unanimous in describing the bread and wine as a sacrifice (gift to God) in the liturgy. For that matter, so are the Lutheran dogmaticians. WHAT is present in the Eucharist is the body and blood that were sacrificed on Calvary; but the term "unbloody" is used to denote that this sacrifice is made present without the actual immolation of a living being.
"May the Lord except the sacrifice at your(priest) hands for the praise and glory..." This is part of the Roman Catholic liturgy I grew up with. I know it is not part of the Lutheran Liturgy. I stopped attending the RC many years ago to attend church with my wife at her evangelical denomintion. After more than ten years of not attending a liturgical church I missed it. I have not returned to the RC for theological and family reasons. I found the liturgy in the LCMS Lutherans to be comforting to a middle aged ex-catholic. Is the Sacrifice(gift to God) the same kind of sacrifice I grew up with in the Lutheran Church. Is the early church fathers definition of sacrifice closer to todays Orthodox/Catholic or Lutheran sacrifice?
Dear Anon,
The Lutherans at the time of the Reformation reacted strongly (and quite correctly) to what was being taught of the sacrifice of the Mass in those days. I do not think the teaching then bore much resemblance to what the Fathers meant by the holy sacrifice. For Lutheran Christians the accent is always squarely on God's giving, and this most especially in the Eucharist. Think of the directionality of the Words of Institution. "Take and eat and drink, for you, for forgiveness."
The sacrifice comes in, it seems to me, in two aspects: first, there is the fact that in the "do this" of the Sacrament, our Lord commanded the use of bread and wine. Neither of these occur naturally as a gift of God. They are gift of God that has been worked by human hands. They are a sign of the gift of creation received, transformed, and then offered to God for holy purpose. He gives us grapes and grain. We work it into wine and bread and present this to Him at His command.
He then takes what is offered and by His Word transforms it and gives it back to us: His body and blood. And this is sacrifice in another sense. Sacrifice as NOUN. He gives us what He offered for us upon Calvary that our sins be forgiven.
But receiving such a gift, so unbelievably great and holy, calls forth another sacrifice from us: the sacrifice of our praise and thanksgiving.
And thus the Eucharist shows us the very nature of life with our God: He gives, we offer back to Him, He gives what we offer back as inexpressibly more than we could ever hope for, and this calls forth our sacrifice of praise.
Thus, the accent remains quite squarely upon God's gift, rather than our sacrifice.
What Lutherans NEVER mean in the offering of sacrifice is that we by our actions ever enter into His self-oblation on Calvary. We're "in" His sacrifice because He offers it in our shared human nature and He offers it on our behalf. But this offering which He offered He offered once and for all and it remains His gift to us.
Here's how some of the Lutheran dogmaticians have spoken of it:
Gerhard:
In the celebration of the Eucharist ‘we proclaim the Lord’s death’ (1 Cor. 11:26) and pray that God would be merciful to us on account of that holy and immaculate sacrifice completed on the cross and on account of that holy Victim which is certainly present in the Eucharist…. That he would in kindness receive and grant a place to the rational and spiritual oblation of our prayer. (Confessio Catholica, vol II, par II, arti xiv, cap. I, ekthesis 6, 1200-1201)
It is clear that the sacrifice takes place in heaven, not on earth, inasmuch as the death and passion of God’s beloved Son is offered to God the Father by way of commemoration… In the Christian sacrifice there is no victim except the real and substantial body of Christ, and in the same way there is no true priest except Christ Himself. Hence, this sacrifice once offered on the cross takes place continually in an unseen fashion in heaven by way of commemoration, when Christ offers to His Father on our behalf His sufferings of the past, especially when we are applying ourselves to the sacred mysteries, and this is the ‘unbloody sacrifice’ which is carried out in heaven. (1204)
Hollaz:
If we view the matter from the material standpoint, the sacrifice in the Eucharist is numerically the same as the sacrifice that took place on the cross; put otherwise, one can say that the things itself and the substance is the same in each case, the victim or oblation is the same. If we view the matter formally, from the standpoint of the act of sacrifice, then even though the victim is numerically the same, the action is not; that is, the immolation in the Eucharist is different from the immolation carried out on the cross. For on the cross an offering was made by means of the passion and death of an immolated living thing, without which there can be no sacrifice in the narrow sense, but in the Eucharist the oblation takes place through the prayers and through the commemoration of the death or sacrifice offered on the cross. (Examen theologicum acroamaticum, II, 620)
Prayer from Hollaz:
Almighty Lord Jesus Christ, as often as I shall come to Your holy table to refresh my spirit, I pray You to make me, unworthy as I am, worthy through Your grace; impure as I am, to make me clean; naked as I am to clothe me, so that Your Body, so full of divine power, and Your most precious Blood may not become for me, Your servant, the occasion for judgment or punishment, but a memorial of the death You underwent for me, a strengthening of my faith, a proof of the taking away of my sins, a bond of closer union with You, an increase of holiness, the basis of a glad resurrection, and a pledge of everlasting life. Amen.
Thank you,
Your explaination is very helpful. I did not know the difference in the sacrifice until I studied Reformation theology. I am secure in knowing God has acted on our/my behalf.
"May the Lord except the sacrifice at your(priest) hands for the praise and glory..." This is part of the Roman Catholic liturgy I grew up with.
May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands . . . although the sacrifice of bread and wine are offered by the whole community of Christ's priestly people through the hands of the priest, the ordained minister.
Some priests will say, "Pray, brothers and sisters that my sacrifice and yours ... etc."
I wasn't sure if Anonymous was clear on this.
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