The Lutheran Way - It Makes A Difference? (Series 7 of 9)

(Building and Liturgy, part 3)

Following our hearing of the Gospel, our confessing our faith, our response of faith through our first fruits giving and the offering of our petitions to the Lord we move into the Service of the Sacrament, the Lord’s Supper. Usually during the singing of the Offertory or a choral response, the pastor(s) prepare the Altar bringing the elements from the Credence Table to the Altar in preparation for consecration. The Service of the Sacrament begins with Scriptural response between pastor and congregation. It includes the Preface for the Supper, as well as, the singing of the Sanctus in which we are reminded we will be communing at the altar with all the saints in heaven, the heavenly host (sabbaoth). We understand we cannot see them nor can they see us, but we have the assurance they are with us. Indeed, what joy to know it is at this time and place we can be as close as we can while on this earth with our loved ones who have passed on into the Church Triumphant. After we have prayed the very prayer our Lord has given us to pray, the Lord’s Prayer (and certainly who can give a better prayer for us to pray than our Lord Himself?), the elements, bread and wine, are consecrated with the Words of Institution that as we are given the bread, we are given the body of Christ Himself. And as we are given the wine, we are given the blood of Christ Himself as well.
 

As the congregants come forward and are invited to the table and kneel, they are given the body and blood of Christ as He tells us, “Take eat this is my body, my blood.” Although there is nothing commanded in our being given the body and blood of our Lord, it is quite appropriate we are given His body directly in our mouths so that there is no part we have in being given His body. And it is most appropriate we partake of His blood from the common chalice as there is One Body of Christ, the Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints. It is also appropriate we affirm what we are given with the confident word of “Amen.”
 

Here again our church building expresses the importance and centrality of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as the Altar is in the middle of the chancel reminding us and teaching us that Jesus comes to us through His Holy Supper. As we are taught, so we practice what we believe, teach and confess about what and how Jesus gives us His gifts.
 

Following our dismissal from the Lord’s Table and following the elements being properly put away, we continue singing the Post-Communion Canticle. Most appropriate is Simeon’s song as it rejoices in the fact that now as we have seen Jesus in the flesh in His body and blood and tasting He is good, we are ready to meet our Lord, that is, we are ready to pass on from this world, the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant, and what joy that would be at that very moment.
 

Our Divine Service concludes with the Aaronic Benediction being placed on us. The three-fold, Trinitarian benediction again reminds us of our Baptism and prepares us to go out into the mission field where the fields are white with the harvest. Having been fed with the Word and Sacrament as we have been taught and having learned what we believe by the way we practice what we have been taught, we are strengthened in our faith and are able to go out and be ready to give an answer, a defense of the hope we have in Jesus and Jesus alone.
 

From the very beginning of our walking into our church building, we are being taught the importance of Jesus, His Word, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, the Word read and proclaimed, and His Holy Supper. At the same time we have seen how these important elements are in the Divine Service, that is, in God coming to us to give us the gifts and blessings He has to give: faith, forgiveness of sins, strengthening of faith, life (in this world and in the world to come), and salvation. We see clearly how what we believe informs how we carry out what we believe and how we rehearse what we believe teaches us the same.
 

Next, what are we missing or are we missing anything? Are we missing anything which might distract us from our being where we are? What else is there which might make a difference?