COME
WORSHIP
GOD
WITH US!
AN EXPLANATION
OF THE MEANING
AND PATTERN
OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST
This has been written so that you can participate more fully in the principal act of worship of the Episcopal Church, the Holy Eucharist. You may already know this service by another name: Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord's Supper, the Divine Liturgy, Great Thanksgiving. It is the most celebrated service among Christians everywhere and within the worldwide Anglican Communion of Churches of 75 Million Christians.
We believe that Jesus is truly, invisibly and immaterially present. This presence is not a reappearance but the revelation of something existing in eternity, as if a window to what lies beyond time and space had been opened to us. So the earthly Eucharist is a foretaste of the eternal communion we shall enjoy with God in heaven.
THE CHRISTIAN COVENANT WITH GOD
The Episcopal Church teaches that Jesus the Christ inaugurated a New Covenant with God. A covenant may be defined as a durable relationship founded on commitment and reliability, and involves promises and obligations. This covenant predicted of Jeremiah (31:31-34) and brought about by Jesus' perfect, obedient self-offering (sacrifice) for the sins of the world was accepted and made effective, when God raised him from the dead. Now Jesus, Lord and Savior, sits at the right hand of God in Heaven where he exercises his High Priesthood on our behalf as our Intercessor, Mediator and Advocate (Jesus' ongoing work for us). Through him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of sins, and a harmonious or right relationship with God. The result is reconciliation, peace and communion with God in Christ. God brings us within the covenant (establishes the relationship) in Baptism, which is a personal Pentecost: the baptized celebrate, renew and strengthen the relationship in Holy Eucharist, which is the covenanted community's partaking of the Easter Resurrection Event (the Christian Passover or Paschal Mystery).
"DO THIS."
FOLLOWING THE COMMAND OF OUR LORD
At the Last Supper Jesus instituted a meal for his memorial and as a celebration of the new covenant. He instructed his disciples to "Do this": give thanks over bread and wine as their memorial of him before God. We do the same. We take bread and wine and call upon the name of the Lord.
The name of this service, 'Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist' (Greek for 'people's work' or 'service of Holy Thanksgiving'), comes from a type of Peace Offering called the Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving that was offered in the Jerusalem Temple by the Jewish priests. It was believed that this type of sacrifice brought communion between God and God's faithful people. We believe that God, the Holy Trinity, does the same in our Eucharistic Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving. We are commanded to offer the Sacrifice of Praise continually (Hebrews 13: 15). Jesus has made our peace with God and he is, therefore, our Peace.
The Eucharist is not the sacrifice of Jesus repeated, but the joyous and grateful commemoration of it in a liturgical (or ritual) action that actualizes what it represents. We remember a past, temporal, historical event, but in the present we partake of the risen, glorified, victorious and eternal Lord at the Table of the Lord even as we await his future coming in glory. Our thanksgiving memorial, which is our bounden duty and service, is the Eucharistic sacrifice. God uses our offering to make Jesus' sacrifice present to us in a sacrament. To quote Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome (440-461 A.D.), "what our Redeemer did visibly has passed over into the sacraments.”
We believe that Jesus is truly, invisibly and immaterially present. This presence is not a re-appearance but the revelation of something existing in eternity, as if a window to what lies beyond time and space had been opened to us. So the earthly Eucharist is a foretaste of the eternal communion we shall enjoy with God in heaven
The Service is divided into two parts. In the first we learn about God's saving deeds in the Liturgy of the Word. In the second we make Eucharist. We ask God, the Father, to accept the gifts of bread and wine and make them be or transform them by an act of the Divine Will into the sacramental presence of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. We believe that God offers us the Christ; in turn, we can offer ourselves to God through, with and in Christ. Common food becomes divine food; ordinary men and women become extraordinary; the unholy becomes holy; the imperfect, perfect; the mortal, immortal. We believe that our earthly thanksgiving offering becomes one with Jesus in heaven. So the Atonement is present because the Atoning Lord is. Let's take a look at the dynamics of the Holy Eucharist in the basic service order:
Liturgy of the Word
. acclamation and praise to God
. the proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News,
of God's salvation in Christ
. a confession of the faith of the Church
. an intercession on behalf of the world in union with Christ
. the confession and forgiveness of sins
. the exchange of God's peace and reconciling love
Liturgy of the Holy Communion
. the bringing up of gifts
. praise to God for creation and thanksgiving for
saving deeds
. a recitation of Our Lord's command to do his memorial
. a remembrance of his passion, death, resurrection
and ascension
. an offering of the gifts of bread and wine for God's
acceptance
. a supplication to God to send the Holy Spirit upon the
gifts to make Jesus' sacrifice present and effective now
. a petition that the worshippers, offering themselves through
Christ, be made acceptable and be blessed by the same Holy
Spirit whom God sends upon the bread and wine to be the
sacramental Body and Blood of Christ
. union of the participants with Christ and each other
in communion
. the formation of the worshippers as the Spirit-filled priestly
people, the Body of Christ, consecrated for God's service
. a thanksgiving to God for faithfulness to the divine
promise made unto Christ in the covenant to accept
us as living members of Christ
. a petition by the people for God's grace in order to be
faithful witnesses of Christ as his ambassadors and
co-workers to a world broken by sin
. (blessing) and dismissal
MAKING THE EUCHARIST YOUR GUIDEPOST
FOR DAILY LIVING
The Holy Eucharist is supposed to effect change in a person. The effect is not automatic for it is never separated from the spirit in which it is offered nor from the quality of the lives of the worshippers. When a person’s response, called faith, receives and accepts God’s offer of grace, or divine love in action, a life0giving encounter can happen. A person may then come to perceive the truth of the words uttered by St. Cyprian of Carthage (Bishop 7 Martyr, 258 A.D.), “You who have received the Eucharist become one.” This is one way of seeing yourself as a recipient and an instrument of divine love. So Eucharist doesn’t stop when you leave the place of worship, because it is meant to be a part of you, inform and transform your life, change the way you see things (from the viewpoint of God), guide your actions and show you the path of right living. We are called to be ‘doers of the word’ (Matthew 7:24027) who give glory to God by manifesting in our lives what we profess on our lips.
THE EUCHARIST IS THE COLLECTIVE PRAYER OF A COMMUNITY
Anglican Christianity puts special emphasis on the Doctrine of the Incarnation of God. Salvation came in a Person, Chris, of two natures, divine and human. Salvation is about the Creation, not about an abstraction. God the Holy Trinity’s saving activity is not disembodied or separated from the concerns and needs of the world; it reaches out; it acts. We reach out; we act. So salvation has a social dimension: it is about God and humanity.
The Holy Eucharist is the Messianic Banquet and foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God. As such the bread of the Eucharist is the symbol of all bread shared. It is the sacrament of equality in an unequal world. The Eucharist, therefore, cannot by its very nature be private and individualistic, because it involves us in the business of the world, and holds up before us the vision and possibility of a world of transformed individuals and a renewed social order. This vision is called the Kingdom or Reign of God. It is the Kingdom of Peace and
Life. Implicit in this vision is the redemption of the whole human race and the restoration of the created order to its proper set of harmonious relationships, purposes and uses as intended by God, and of which the Eucharist is the expression and hope in worship. It is the vision of the world that is sacramental. The Eucharist, therefore, is by its very nature communal and personal, and not only concerned with individuals and their private interior states and goals. It is the collective prayer of a covenanted people as evidenced by the predominant use of the word “we.” It is Common Prayer, the essential character of Christian living as Anglicanism sees it.
The Eucharist is the pattern and paradigm of all Christian living: offering, thanksgiving/blessing, sharing and communion. It is the liturgical expression of reconciliation, unity, love, harmony and peace with God, among people and the self. It is the opposite of disruptive sin. Episcopalianism sees the Christian life as a long affair of intercession, mediation, growth towards sanctity and holy living. At the heart of this affair in regard to worship is the Eucharist.
GOD'S ALLIES AND FRIENDS
As God’s co-workers Episcopalians are obligated to work for justice and peace. Justice is more than fair shares: it’s about freedom from oppression and the creation of justice. Peace is more than the absence of strife: it’s about total wholeness and harmony. Episcoplalians promise to uphold the dignity of every human being. We reject political, economic and social systems, of whatever kind, that abuse and degrade persons. We value the environment as a sacred trust. We know ourselves to be the stewards of the gifts for which we give praise and thanks to God in the Eucharist. We participate in the liturgy because of who we are in Christ. We are present for each other, because God is present for us.
“Our manner of thinking is conformed to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist confirms our manner of thinking” (St. Iranaeus, Bishop of Vienne in France, 140200 A.D.)
A WORD ABOUT SIN
A sin may be defined as trying to be one’s own god (trying to be self-dependent), disobedience to God’s demand for righteousness (inseparable from salvation), giving ultimate allegiance to created things, or disrupting and/or destroying proper, harmonious relationship(s) by thought word and deed and which results in separation from God, other people or fragments the self. Sin can make a person evil, an enemy and lead one down the way of the covenant with death. Repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and amendment of life result in the restoration of the relationship with God and a new start on the journey to wholeness in the light of Christ.
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER
You may hear the celebrant (priest or bishop) say the words at the Breaking of the Bread, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (I Corinthians 5”6-8). What do we mean by this” Christians regard the passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven as the ultimate revelation of God’s love for us. They are the events of Jesus’ going from life through death into new life. The term for all these events of his life is the Paschal Mystery. Jesus’ sacrificial work is done, but his work of intercession continues as the High Priest forever of a people who share in his priesthood by their baptisms.
Since most early Christians were Jews or Gentiles associated with Judaism, they naturally interpreted Jesus’ life, mission and death in familiar religious terms. Since the Last Supper and the Crucifixion had occurred just before Passover, they associated Jesus’ voluntary death with the killing of the sacrificial Passover lamb. Let’s take a look at the Hebrew scriptures for the association. The Blood of Exodus recounts the story of God’s rescue and deliverance of the Hebrews from oppression and death in Egypt into new life in a new land. But before the escape, God sent the Angel of Death to smite the first born male sons of the Egyptians, but he redeemed the Hebrew first born sons by the blood of sacrificed lambs. The lambs were substitutes for the sons of Israel. The Angel of Death passed over the Hebrew huts whose door lintels and posts were smeared with the blood, which purified and protected the persons inside (the Hebrew word ‘pesach’ means to have compassion, pass over or protect). In protecting the Hebrews, God had also made a covenant with them, claimed them for himself as a unique people and made them a holy nation. This was later celebrated and sealed in a ritual that included the sprinkling of blood on the people. The idea of atonement underlies the whole series of these Exodus/Passover events.
In Jesus' day the Passover Sacrifice was considered to be a variant of the Peace Offering, to which, in addition to the previously mentioned set of concepts, were added the notions of freedom from judgment and the proffering of communion with God. Christians believe that Jesus' redeeming blood poured out for them seals the New Covenant, makes atonement, delivers from bondage to sin and eternal death, frees from condemnation and brings communion with God. Jews and Christians do not perform blood sacrifice. Christians believe that God will provide them a Passover Lamb for their Peace Offering named the Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving. He is the Only Begotten Son, Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Suffering Servant Messiah, who was obedient unto death. It is his passion, Cross and death (his Exodus and Passover) that stands between us and his
judgment now and in the hour of our deaths (final Collect Ash Wednesday Service). Jesus is our Passover. He is our Substitute. He is our Protector. Our Hope. He is the door to eternal life (John 10:7,9). May his Passover be ours.
Another prominent influence was the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur Sacrifice as described m the Book of Leviticus. Once a year the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies with the blood of a sacrificial goat that was without blemish to make atonement on behalf of Israel for the sins committed the previous year. Sin, like an infecting agent, threatened to corrupt everything and disrupt the harmonious relationship between God and the Jews. Sacrificial blood and repentance were thought to kill the infection and reverse the effect of sin, which is death. The Yom Kippur Sacrifice was a whole burnt offering and apurification, atonement offering for sin, which the people did not partake of. The sins were transferred to a second goat, the scapegoat, which was driven into the wilderness. That the Yom Kippur Sacrifice was not regarded as perfect is evidenced by the fact that it had to be repeated.
Christians believe that Jesus entered the Holy of Holies to appear before God on our behalf with his own blood to make atonement for us (not for himself, who knew no blemish of sin, Hebrews 8-10). Jesus was the Priest who made the perfect atonement offering we could not make ourselves; he was our Representative. He was the Victim who bore the sins of the whole world: he was our Substitute. His pure, perfect sacrifice dealt with sin once for all. God accepted Jesus' sacrifice, raised him up and exalted him above all. We, therefore, can draw near to God ('drawing near' to God is the activity of a priestly people) in faith and with confidence. Since we are incorporated into Jesus' sacrificial death and his resurrection in baptism, we have a right to partake of his atoning sacrifice presented to us in communion (Hebrews 10:12-24), because we, who are covenanted, are already at peace with God. Everything that Christ has accomplished for us is poured into us. The result is that his destiny will be ours. Jesus is the Atoning Lord.
The conceptual sequence is: once sin has been dealt with and atonement made in a final, supreme, and complete inaugural sacrifice, then a secured peace with God makes true worship, blessing, and communion possible from then on. Repentance is necessary whenever sin threatens the peace.
IMPORTANT WORDS ABOUT WORSHIP
The Holy Eucharist is worship. It is an action between God and the worshippers. God is the focus of our worship (if not, it would refocus on us or on something else at odds with the purpose of worship). Worship is sacrificial. That is, it is ‘holy making.’ God makes worship holy by the inspiration of the Holy Sprit, the guarantor of our eternal inheritance.
The Holy Eucharist is a sacrament (Latin for 'pledge' or 'oath'). The Eastern Churches call a sacrament 'holy mystery.' A sacrament is an action of God who takes something from the created order and uses it to convey the divine life. The Prayer Book (p. 857) defines a sacrament as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as a sure and certain means by which we receive that grace," or "the bread and wine are visible elements that symbolize a spiritual reality" (St. John of Damascus, 675-749 A.D.). A sacrament effects what it signifies. Eucharist is God's pledge or guarantee of salvation: our pledge is faithfulness and obedient service. In the Eucharist Christ is acting in and through his Church. He is the actual Celebrant and the Sacrament, Offering and Offered, who gives himself to those who are eagerly waiting for him and for whom he has secured an eternal redemption. He is offering us, his Church, before the 'Throne of Grace’ even as we offer ourselves to God on God's altar through him.
The Holy Eucharist is the memorial before God, the Father, of Christ's redeeming Work (I Corinthians 11:23-26). The Eucharist is sacrifice as memorial! God was reconciling all things to himself through Christ, who made peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians I :20). Lest we forget! That's why the Eucharist is at the center of Christian worship: so that Jesus becomes contemporary for each person. Remembrance is the 'window' that makes us aware of the risen Christ already present. Memory is the instrument awareness, not the substance or the reality. We are not celebrating an absent Lord.
The Holy Eucharist is a meal at which Jesus presides and to which he invites his friends in table fellowship to renew the bonds of friendship forged in the covenant of grace. Those who see with the eye of faith will recognize him in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24: 13-35). He is the true bread come done from heaven (John 6:33). At this meal Jesus gives himself to us; invites us to receive his life; and asks us to put ourselves into his saving work.
The Holy Eucharist is a sacrifice. The word literally means 'holy making.' 'Offering' is another meaning. One may define the Eucharistic sacrifice in this way: In praise and thanksgiving for redemption we present to you, 0 God, what comes from your own gifts. God makes the offering holy by sanctifying grace. In itself the offering adds nothing to what Jesus alone has done for us in making atonement for sin; therefore, there are no more sacrifices for sin, but only the repentant heart, the redirected will, changed lives and thanksgivings. Since Christ in heaven is present and acting in our liturgy by the power of his Holy Spirit, our earthly, sacrificial memorial thank offering is his perfect, peacemaking, atoning sacrifice and liturgy. The whole service is a proclamation and a thank offering. "Therefore, let us keep the feast!" The Offering of Peace, the Sacrifice of Praise, the promise of mercy fulfilled!
The Christian life is sacrificial and may be defined as follows: our lives become acceptable offerings (“living sacrifices” Romans 12:1) when offered in Christ and our gifts of time, talent and treasure become spiritual gifts when offered in the Spirit through Jesus Christ. The consecrated life is our goal as members of the ‘house of the Spirit’ (a descriptive term for God’s people) whose missionary calling is to ‘proclaim the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into the marvelous light” (I Peter 2:4-10).
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We often use metaphors. For example we often refer to the bread as ‘host’, from the Latin word for sacrificial victim, or to body and blood. These words are to be understood symbolically and ritually, not literally. They are used to make evident the historical context and theological meaning. By analogy a birthday cake to celebrate someone’s birthday isn’t such unless designated. Otherwise, it’s just cake. We call bread ‘host’ or ‘lamb’: God makes it be Christ our Passover.
Peace or shalom is a sense of wholeness, completeness, harmony, forgiveness, and wellbeing. It is God’s peace. We wish you the Peace of God.
“Almighty and merciful God, you have renewed us by the blessed passion and death of your Christ: preserve in us the work of your redemption that by our partaking of this mystery we may always live devoted to your service.” Amen.
Deo Gratias
Prepared for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts by the Rev. Edward Franks 8/24/99
