I’ve never blogged before, as you’ll quickly discern. Frankly, I’ve never felt that I had that much to talk about on a regular basis (beyond what I already say on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights). However, we’re in a strange new season and suddenly there’s an awful lot I’d like to “think out loud” about. So I’m going to give it a try and I hope you’ll think out loud with me.
Mostly I plan to use this blog to unpack my thoughts about the changes I expect to stick around for awhile in the world and culture around us because of COVID-19. I will explore how “the church” in general, and one little church in particular in Lake Ridge, Virginia, should respond to these changes to better shine the light of Jesus Christ into the dark world around us.
But first, I thought I’d explain why we’re celebrating the Lord’s Supper in our parking lot this Sunday, rather than at home as many churches have done. The answer requires some biblical reflection on what the Lord’s Supper is and how it’s meant to be observed.
My brief answer is that the Lord’s Supper is a remembrance and celebration by the gathered body of Christ of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, observed by partaking bread and drink symbolizing the broken body and shed blood of Christ by which He established the New Covenant of grace. In his helpful little book, Understanding the Lord’s Supper, Bobby Jamieson more formally defines it as
The Lord’s Supper is a church’s act of communing with Christ and each other and of commemorating Christ’s death by partaking of bread and wine, and a believer’s act of receiving Christ’s benefits and renewing his or her commitment to Christ and his people, thereby making the church one body and marking it off from the world.
In this time of social distancing, many churches have celebrated the Lord’s Supper online in individual homes, either with materials on hand, elements provided by the church, or elements baked in the home. I have no doubt these were meaningful spiritual experiences for all involved. However, I am not convinced those experiences are actually the Lord’s Supper. I realize I’m in the minority on this and may be considered needlessly inflexible and doctrinaire. I can live with that until convinced by Scripture otherwise (which is certainly possible).
I believe the Bible teaches that the Lord’s Supper is far more than an individual experience. Rather, as we unpack 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, the Lord’s Supper is meant to be experienced in the context of the gathered local church. It’s meant to remind us and reaffirm the unity of the local body of Christ. We are commanded to discern (look around, seeing, hearing, and feeling) that unified body. We cannot do so from the comfort of our homes:
- 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.“
- 1 Corinthians 11:17-18, “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you…”
- 1 Corinthians 11:20, “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.“
- 1 Corinthians 11:29, “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.“
- 1 Corinthians 11:33, “So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another“
1 Corinthians 10-11 is the Bible’s most definitive teaching regarding the practice of the Lord’s Supper. As you can see, the emphasis is on coming together as the body, the local church. That can certainly be done in groups of 10 or 20 hiding from persecution. I believe it can be done in groups of 10 or 20 meeting together in a home to reduce danger during a pandemic. But coming together as the gathered body of Christ isn’t something a single person or family can do at home while sheltering in place.
The elements aren’t what make the Lord’s Supper the Lord’s Supper. There is nothing special about the bread we eat or the juice we drink. Anything that appropriately symbolizes the body and blood of Christ will serve.
The pastors and deacons aren’t what make the Lord’s Supper the Lord’s Supper. We are just ordinary people, though called by God to serve in a specific capacity in the local church.
The body of Christ gathered to celebrate the broken body and shed blood of our Savior and marveling at the unity Christ died to create within us, that’s what makes the Lord’s Supper the Lord’s Supper. We could certainly use music, prayer, and preaching to create a spiritually meaningful simultaneous consumption of bread and juice in our individual homes, but it wouldn’t be the Lord’s Supper. And so we gather in a parking lot so that we may look around and see our brothers and sisters in Christ, rejoice that in Him we are one, and remember what it cost to make that happen.
As a pastor, I could be wrong, but if I’m going to be wrong, I want to be wrong on the side of theological caution in regards to the Lord’s Supper. Why? Because 1 Corinthians 11:27 warns, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.”