Corpus
Christi + Year C The Rev Robert R.M. Bagwell+
29,
May 2016 Pentecost 2
In the Church Catholic in the
West, this Sunday is often celebrated as "Corpus Christi"
Sunday. Today is a celebration of the
Body of Christ. It mirrors the Maundy
Thursday celebration, where we are focus more on the events leading up to Good
Friday than: do this in remembrance of Me.
This is most appropriate for us
to consider, as holy mystery that we celebrate each Sunday with such varied
names as: the Lord's Supper, the Holy Communion, the Mass, the Holy Eucharist
and the Divine Liturgy. As with the
other Dominical Sacrament, Baptism (that is a sacrament commanded by Jesus) this
Sacrament has a multiplicity of meanings. Some of the meanings overlap such as
death and resurrection but both always have the intent of bringing us closer to
Christ.
Why then has this sacrament been
the point of division among the various Protestant Churches? Why do theologians
"strain at a gnat and swallow a camel", (as Jesus put it) when they
discuss this sacrament? The Book of
Common Prayer calls it: the principal act of
Christian worship. Why for something we do every week of the year do
we never talk about that which is so fundamental to our worship of Jesus
Christ?
Perhaps this is because it
is such a mystery. Yet such mysteries are worth learning even with the
questions they may pose. I want to first
look at the collect. O God,
your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and
earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those
things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Put away from us all hurtful things? I don't think
God exactly does that primarily because hurtful things give us personal
growth. Perhaps Thomas Cranmer thought
of more destructive things to the body and soul. To give us those things which are profitable
for us is exactly what he did in the Holy Communion.
The Collect used for this
feast of the church customarily is found in the Prayaerbook on page 252 and was
composed by St. Thomas Aquinas. God our Father, whose Son our Lord Jesus
Christ in a wonderful Sacrament has left us a memorial of his passion: Grant us
so to venerate the sacred mysteries of his Body and Blood, that we may ever
perceive within ourselves the fruit of his redemption; who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
In our few minutes
together this morning, I would like to unpack this a bit. This first thing we will look at is the words
of St. Paul in Roman' chapter twelve.
Paul wrote to the church at Rome: I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual (act of) worship.
2 Do not be conformed to this world[a] but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of
God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Transformation
is what the new birth is about. Christ in
us the hope of glory (Col. 1:27) Sacrifice
is at the heart of the Christian gospel: Firstly, Christ's sacrifice for us and
secondly, our sacrifice for Christ. Some think going to church is a sacrifice. Some think we go to church to get; more specifically we go to church to give. Worship means to give worth to.
Some high churches begin the Holy Eucharistic prayer
with the phrase: Pray brothers and sisters that my sacrifice and your
may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father. This doesn't
mean just the offerings of the bread and wine which represent the fruits of our
labors, but the offering of ourselves, as
the Prayerbook says: We offer
and present unto you ourselves our souls and bodies. What we gain from the Eucharist is much more than we
give. Christianity retains a
living theology of sacrifice that conveys God’s universal truths.
The absolute claim of God on us as He is
Creator God and the inability of humanity to meet that need or claim in our own persons
tells us that someone has to pay. .
Humanity needs an acceptable sacrifice. Indeed even in the very human realm, if
we talk about those who made the ultimate
sacrifice and if it was by free
choice, we are astounded!
Sacrifice is costly even in human love of another person, sacrificial love for
children or love of a cause. It
is necessary for humanity to express love for God, devotion and worship in
outward rite or act because as John wrote:
"God is Love. In
First John chapter four we read: God is love. Whoever lives in
love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how
love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of
judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives
out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made
perfect in love.19 We love because he first loved us.
The word sacrament comes
from the Roman Empire. Before the
soldiers went out to fight they took an oath to Caesar. They swore to faithfully execute their charge unto
death. In the case of our sacraments, it
is God who takes the oath of covenant with us as we do back to him as we
receive Jesus Christ as Savior and in His sacraments. Each time we receive, we renew our oath and
reaffirm that we believe God’s oath. When
we say: "lift up your hearts" and respond "we lift them up unto the
Lord" it is called an anamnesis. This is our lifting up of Christ's sacrifice
to the Father as a remembrance (anamnesis) of what Christ did for us!
Sacrifice took several
forms in the Old Testament: a gift to God of gratitude, a sacrifice to win the
favor of God; a fellowship meal consuming of a sacred meal which contained the
strength of the god supposedly and gives the god=s
strength to the worshippers , or the sharing of table fellowship with the god an
offering for sin, acknowledging the nature of sin and its significance. Yet
Christianity’s roots of sacrificial understanding began with some different
presuppositions.
In Genesis 22: 6-14 we
read of father Abraham taking wood for a burnt offering and placing it
on his son Isaac, and he himself carrying the fire and the knife. As the two of
them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, Father?
The fire and wood are here, but where is the
lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham answered him, God himself will
provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. As they went on, they reached the
place God had told Abraham about, (which is now the temple mount in Jerusalem)
they built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Abraham bound his son
Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the
knife to kill his son as God had commanded him, but the Lord=s
angel called out to him from heaven, AAbraham! Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy@. ADon=t do anything to him. Now I know that
you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. When
Abraham looked he saw in a thicket a ram
caught by its horns. He went over and
took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place the LORD Will
Provide. God provided a sacrifice for sin; yes, it had
to be paid for but, God provided the sacrifice. Such was never heard of in any religion!
We see this ultimately in Jesus-I
Corinthians 5:7 says: Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch
without yeastBas you
really are. For Christ, our Passover
lamb, has been sacrificed. Christ our Passover.
The lambs
were sacrificed in commemoration of God=s deliverance in Egypt. Christianity celebrates when
the Lamb of God was sacrificed for our deliverance from the penalty of sin. We
celebrate this in the Holy
Eucharist: a word meaning, thanksgiving
used very early in the New Testament church. They came and we come to say thank you to God
and especially Jesus. In the catechism we read: Q. By what other names
is this service known? The Holy Eucharist is called the Lord=s Supper, and Holy Communion; it is also known as the
Divine Liturgy, the Mass, and the Great
Offering. It is called the Lord’s Supper: it was a meal. It is the Christian family reunion meal, we
come to see Jesus in the bread and wine and in one another. It is called the Holy Communion (I Corinthians 10:15)
commune with God and his people, the
Eucharist (the Greek word for thanksgiving,
participation fellowship (the Koinonia). We commune in the body the blood of Christ. Paul
said to the Corinthian Church: Is
not the cup of thanksgiving for
which we give thanks a
participation in the blood of
Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? It is a way we
sacramentally share in the sacrifice for usCunite
ourselves to God and one another. This
is an act of worship and one by which we gain strength from God by feeding on
the sacrifice. It is called by the
Orthodox Church of the East, the Divine
Liturgy: leitourgia, a word that means work. This
is the work of worshiping God! It is a
work of proclamation of Jesus’ death. I Corinthians 11 says: as often as we eat this bread and drink
this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes. Death? Yes, death we celebrate
the death of death and the death of our own slavery to self. Remember what we
read in Romans chapter twelve, Therefore,
I urge you, brothers, in view of God=s mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God‑‑this is your spiritual act of worship. The second question, in the BCP on page 859: Q. Why the Eucharist is called a
sacrifice? A. Because the Eucharist, the Church’s sacrifice of praise
and thanksgiving, is the way by which the sacrifice of Christ is made present, and
in which he unites us to his one offering of himself. Way of Christ’s sacrifice is made present and
unites us to His one offering of Himself.
We become what we eat! That is why we Episcopalians as well as all
of Catholic Christendom receive this communion with the awe and reverence that
we do. ABut I don=t
understand it? Jesus said take eat, not take understand. Believe and we will receive God’s
Blessing! Expect nothing and we are
bound to receive it....The Catechism continues: Q. What is the inward
and spiritual grace given in the Eucharist? A. The inward and spiritual
grace in the Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his
people, and received by faith. This spiritual eating and drinking brings to the
object of faith into the believer.
The basis of the Holy Eucharist
is the Incarnation. God has broken into this world making human flesh into
God-flesh. We believe that by the Holy Spirit He makes bread and wine His body
and blood we Anglicans do not ask HOW. Paul writes of this in the aorist
tense of the Greek language. The aorist tense refers to something that occurs in
actual time in history, but which effects continue throughout all of eternity. We
participate in a mystery a mystical communion with the Divine a, once and for
all sacrifice whose benefits make it according to the Greek text a continual
sacrifice and benefit. Paul wrote: Christ our Passover is sacrificed
not WAS sacrificed for us. It is as though every minute of
every day the benefits of Christ’s Jesus’ sacrifice are given to us.
Today we are united to Christ,
priest and victim, the offerer and
the offered in the Mass, the Supper of the Lord, the Communion, the Eucharist,
the literal broken body signified by the Broken Bread and the blood signified
in the cup. This is the Christian
strength: and willingness to follow in Christ’s example, by Christ’s power in Christ’s
body. It is a willingness to be broken
for the sake of even those who do not care.
This is the Christian faith. This is catholic, universal religion. This is Jesus our sacrifice God’s payment for
our sins, debt, and penalty. Today, come
and worship the Lamb whom Revelation 13 calls the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world... Come let us worship.
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