Dear Congregation,
Most things we do in worship we do every time we worship – yet some things are more seasonal.
The first may suffer from what might be called ‘familiarity contempt’ – we are so used to these things they simply happen. We trust that the various elements of biblical worship are always engaged in as a meaningful reality, but if we are honest, we sometimes suddenly notice that we’ve been singing a couple of verses of a hymn but suddenly realise our mind was somewhere else, that we had been worshipping in religious auto-pilot mode. And it is not just limited to singing, or praying, or listening to the sermon.
Perhaps with the sacraments the temptation is not so much familiarity contempt but what might be called ‘occasional superstitiousness’ – because of their infrequency we are grieved over missing them and as a result place such an attachment to them that we dare not miss being present, and that partaking somehow makes one feel some sort of holiness-boost in our faith. Sadly some develop a magical view of them, thinking that the mere participation in them produces some type of merit or helps to wash away sin. Or maybe it is ‘infrequency indifference’ – it has been so long we don’t cherish them any more as having a vital role within our faith and worship – they’re OK but not essential.
Have we known something of this over the covid-year that keeps on taking? Can you remember the last time we gathered at the Lord’s Table to partake in the Lord’s Supper? The Session is taking steps to have the Lord’s Supper next Sunday morning (concluding the live-stream before moving to this sacrament). So how shall we view it, value it, prepare for it?
From the Bible we can identify only two sacraments instituted by Christ and given to His church to observe – baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
In the Institutes of Christian Religion (IV.14.1) Calvin defined a sacrament as ‘an external sign by which the Lord seals on our consciences His promises of goodwill toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in turn testify our piety towards Him, both before Himself and before angels as well as men.’
This draws attention to their relationship to the covenant as signs and seals of God’s grace and promises, their public rather than private nature, as belonging to the church rather than for individual expression, for the strengthening and expression of our faith and loyalty as a covenant people in their devotion and witness to God.
I appreciate how Calvin starts with God, then moves to believers and back again to God. Ultimately, the sacraments are a declaration and celebration of God’s grace, and only serve as a confirmation and testimony of our faith except in response to it.
As a result we are reminded that the sacraments are a means of grace only to those who receive them by faith, but in receiving them by faith we are strengthened in that faith, and give glory to God in faith’s expression.
That in turn places an emphasis on understanding what the Word of God teaches. That is why in our churches of reformed and presbyterian tradition we go from the Word to the Sacrament. ‘God utters His voice to us by the voice of the prophets, and in the sacraments takes, as it were, a visible form’ (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 5:37).
In his 1545 Catechism Calvin speaks of the purpose of a sacrament as being ‘An outward attestation of the grace of God which, by a visible sign, represents spiritual things to imprint the promises of God more firmly in our hearts, and to make us more sure of them’ (Q. 310).
Then in Q. 318 he added, ‘We are not to be taken up with the earthly sign so as to seek our salvation in it, nor are we to imagine that it has a peculiar power enclosed within it. On the contrary, we are to employ the sign as a help, to lead us directly to the Lord Jesus, that we may find in Him our salvation and all our well-being.’
Robert Rayburn helpfully explains the implications of this
‘The sacraments set forth the same truth which comes to us through the Scriptures, but the truth is ministered in a different way, and is discerned in a distinctly different manner…. It is through the sacraments that God reinforces the truth and the appeal of the Word which is preached….baptism as a sign and seal making real to us our initiation into blessed union with other believers in the body of Christ, while the Lord’s Supper seals and makes real to us our perseverance in this union even as we avail ourselves of the continuing efficacy of His blood and the never-failing nourishment of the Bread of Life.’ (O Come Let Us Worship)
So we greatly value the sacraments the Lord has given to us, yet we are mindful of their proper place and use – remembering also as Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 10:1–4 that we can receive the sacraments but still be unbelieving and unconverted, and ultimately be rejected by God:
“Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”
1 Corinthians 10:1–4
Notice how he alludes to the New Covenant sacraments by speaking of being baptized, eating, and drinking. Sacraments do not save and cannot save. But they can and do strengthen those who are saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, assuring them of the sureness and efficacy of God’s promises of grace – testifying of that reality to unbelievers even as they are called to come to Jesus in faith.
Together in Christ’s love and service,
John
Your Pastor