The Lord's Supper has kept this memory so deeply alive precisely because it is even more than a memorial meal. It is not only a celebration of reminiscence like the Passover, in which the human spirit recalled the past for itself, but it is a genuine, actual
bringing into the present of God's redeeming act through the gift of the body and blood of Christ.—Dr. Hermann Sasse,
We Confess: the Sacraments, p. 91.
But what do Lutherans believe, if the Lord's Supper is simply not a memorial meal, that the redeeming act does through the gift? Impute justification/righteousness? Effect a change in the person receiving? Neither? Both? What?
ReplyDeletePerhaps this prayer can help give an answer. It was written by the great Lutheran dogmatician, David Hollaz:
ReplyDeleteAlmighty 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.
Or this one from Dr. Luther:
Lord, it is true that I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but I need and desire your help and grace to make me godly. I now come to you, trusting only in the wonderful words I just heard, with which you invite me to your table and promise me, the unworthy one, forgiveness of all my sins through your body and blood if I eat and drink them in this sacrament. Amen. Dear Lord, I do not doubt the truth of your words. Trusting them, I eat and I drink with you. Do unto me according to your words. Amen.
in memorium
ReplyDeleteH.S. Mozolak
the silver shimmers
a circular stemmed setting
for the liquid ruby
the color of wine
where some of his sweat
has fallen
into the same depression
a dent of soldiers’ sandals
near the trunk
a drop of blood
dripping into its midst
the surrounding mud
from which once
at first was formed and raised
human flesh and form
now holds the last of his living
quivering as the earth begins
to quake and shake
shuddering with a thirsting hunger
the meal is finished
the fragmented pieces
a gathered grain
offering peace
serves the starved and suffering
from more than memory