Awenydd

Hoc est corpus meum.

These words have led to possibly the greatest piece of silliness in all of liturgical history. This is what happens when you don’t say the prayers in a language everyone can understand and in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear clearly.

After all, you wouldn’t want them to hear you say “Hoc est corpus meum” and actually think you said hocus pocus, now you would you? Yet that is probably what happened in the medieval church.

The Eucharistic prayer of the medieval church, along with the whole liturgy, was spoken in Latin, and the general populace wasn’t schooled in Latin. To make matters worse, the words were whispered over the bread during the eucharist instead of spoken aloud. Together with a vulgar understanding of transubstantiation, it is no wonder that most people thought the priest was performing some sort of magic trick.

So because of several errors in worship, the words that should have been good news to the people of God—”This is my body”—were transformed into the magic phrase for parlor trick illusionists.

Quoted sections are from chapters 66 and 67 of
Justin Martyr’s First Apology, c. AD 150

For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone . . .

I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone about this before, and am not sure what prompts me to write about it now. But . . . here it is:

I was not baptized until age 8 when we joined an OPC congregation. Obviously, neither was I welcomed to the Lord’s Table until after that. Since for almost six years after my 12th birthday family attended a church that required confirmation to gain access to the Table, the first time I took communion I was a teenager. Well, at least officially . . .

The practice of Lord’s Supper always fascinated me. Since the age of two I watched my parents participate in it along with the rest of the adults in church. I took it for granted that it was not for kids.

Once, when we brought an African American boy with us to church as part of some evangelical outreach, he became very excited when the elders began to pass around bread and . . . grape juice.

“Hey,” he said aloud, “they’re giving us food!” I hushed him quickly, tersely explaining to him in a whisper that that was for grown-ups. He didn’t quite get it, and I saw the confused and slightly offended look on his face when the elders passed us by without giving us any. Well, duh, I thought (no, I didn’t actually know the word “duh” yet). It’s not for kids.

But even though I knew it was a grown-up thing, I imagined having a part in it, similar to the way that at the age of 3 I packed a little briefcase (actually the case to a toy medical kit) and pretended I was going to the office with my father one morning. I knew what communion was and what it meant, as much as a three-year-old can understand. The grape juice represented Jesus’ blood and the bread his body. I didn’t really know what that meant (who really does, fully?), but it was something Jesus did, and that meant it was a good thing. To me, a piece of bread together with a cup has been iconic of the Lord’s Supper for as long as I can remember.

Whenever I had grape juice at home, I’d ask for bread too, secretly pretending I was having communion. I remember unsuccessfully trying to pretend once with bread and orange juice, since grape juice was unavailable at that moment. I glibly told my mother that I was having communion, but she told me I shouldn’t pretend that. I conceded, yeah, orange juice was not very authentic.

Our church, Cornerstone Bible Church, where my father was an elder, met in a college classroom. After church service I’d drag my friends into some adjoining classroom and pretend to have another service, pushing a chair to the front of the room so I could climb up onto it and stand behind the podium to speak. Sometimes they humored me.

Early on at Cornerstone, after service my mother would let me have the bread that was left over from communion. Yep, that’s right. The actual bread that had sat in the communion tray and had been consecrated for holy use, as much as that meant to us back then. For my part, I never considered that a normal afternoon snack. There was something special about that bread, even if I couldn’t express exactly what it was. After all, as one can see from the examples above, even though my family had a more or less baptist understanding of the sacraments at the time, I’d been raised with a healthy respect and a deep appreciation for the Lord’s Table, and it sure took. As much as I liked to pretend when I could with bread and grape juice, this was different. This was the real thing.

For whatever reason, I stopped getting the “leftovers” fairly early on, much to my disappointment. But I’ve remembered it to this day, and, at least as far as the church fathers would have seen it, that would have been my first conscious participation in the Eucharistic elements, even if there never seemed to be any leftover grape juice.

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.

At that age, somewhere between 2 and 4, I was like one who had been absent from the table (though I was never absent from the worship service) and was given the elements after the dismissal. Though there certainly was an amount of impropriety about my taking the elements then, since I hadn’t yet been baptized, I took them (or one of them, at least) nonetheless.

It made me feel a part of something bigger. It gave a sense of belonging along with the grown-ups of the church. I suppose if I can put words to the exact feeling it gave me, I’d say it made me feel special. But isn’t that one of the central points of Communion? It’s an expression of unity among and within the body. A meal reserved for the called-out ones.

Can I say that I derived any real spiritual benefit from it? Perhaps, if we acknowledge the objectivity of the sacraments and the real presence of Christ in the Supper when it is presented beside the preaching of the Word.

Even as Eucharist means to give thanks, that is what I do. I’m thankful every day that I was raised in a Christian home where I was always aware of the goodness of God. Where Christ was presented to me in Word and sacrament every single Lord’s Day (well, sacrament was once a month), even if I was not officially welcome to partake of the latter.

The lesson to be learned is simple: Never underestimate how much your little children understand or how even the slightest bit of inclusion in the life of the Church will benefit them, both now and in the future. And don’t discount the messages that exclusion sends them either.

It is said that a child’s most formative time is at about age 3. For the rest of their lives, long after they may have forgotten details or even whole events, that period of growth remains etched in their subconscious.

Children are born to instinctively imitate their parents unless and until they are taught otherwise. If we really want them to imitate us in faith, then why should we, by our actions, teach them not to during their most formative years? If you want your children to follow you in faith, then teach them how to by including them in it. And teach them early.

Psalm 22:9-10
Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

I’m laying out the structure of the Book of Revelation as part of my study of liturgy. This is just the structure from my initial observations. I need to compare notes with commentaries particularly in chapters 5-18 to see how these sections have been read historically. I also need to develop the implications such a structure has for Christian worship. Comments are welcome.

Chapter 1:1-3
Introduction and Authorship

1:4-8
Salutation and doxology

1:10-19
The liturgical setting. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” Meeting with God. Note John meets an angel (messenger) first.

Chapter 2-3
To the seven churches, a call to repentance.

Chapter 4
Ascension. Having dealt with sin, the door is opened, and John is caught up to the throne room of God. Creatures of heaven say sanctus. “Holy, Holy, Holy . . . .” The elders reply, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God . . . for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” It’s a hymn celebrating God’s work as creator.

Chapter 5-18
The Word of the Lord. These chapters recount the entire history of redemption, from the sealing of the elect (Chapter 7), to the fall of the false Bride (Chapter 18).

Chapter 19:1-10
The fall of the Harlot is cause for rejoicing because it results in the exaltation of the true Bride, Christ’s Church. The multitude sings “Hallelujah” because salvation is complete. The Bride is revealed and she adorns herself for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

19:11-21; 20:1-5
The commission of the Church for the rest of history.

Chapter 20:6-14; Chapter 21-22
The eschatological hope of Christ’s return in glory.

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the LORD.
~Jeremiah 31:20

There have been some interesting discoveries in archeology recently. The ossuary of James the Just is a curiosity; the so-called “tomb of Jesus” is a farce. Most recently though, has been a discovery that actually informs and helps to fill out the picture of what the first century Jewish context might have looked like. The Hazon Gabriel (Revelation of Gabriel) tablet isn’t garnering as much attention as the previous two discoveries mentioned, but in my view it’s a more important find.

First I want to take a brief look at prophetic language in the Bible itself, particularly references to Ephraim. A professor of mine once suggested that the apparent special affinity of Yahweh to Ephraim in the Old Testament is simply because the tribe of Ephraim lies at the heart of Israel geographically. So speaking of Ephraim is a sort of poetic short hand for referring to Israel as a whole. Sure. Sounded plausible at the time, and I didn’t have any better explanation, so I accepted that. It sort of makes sense of passages like Jeremiah 31:20, though it doesn’t necessarily make sense of the fact that Judah and Ephraim are often mentioned side by side. It also doesn’t explain why Ephraim would seem to be singled out as opposed to the rest of Israel in passages such as Jeremiah 31:9:

I will make them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble,
for I am a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Poetic language? Perhaps. But when we begin to look at the literature of the period, we find that those of Jesus’ time did not read references to Ephraim as simple prophetic short hand. As messianic expectations intensified under first Greek then Roman occupation, the name Ephraim came to be closely associated with Messiah.

In the Hazon Gabriel, Ephraim is even portrayed as ranking above David. We see phrases like “My servant David, ask of Ephraim [that he] place the sign; (this) I ask of you.” The current issue of Biblical Archeology Review does a good job of highlighting messianic references to Ephraim in the literature, and brings them to an interesting conclusion. The reference to Ephraim here in a messianic context ties in with post Second Temple Jewish sources that scholars had always attributed to Christian influence. For who is Ephraim of the Old Testament?

Genesis 46:20
In Egypt, Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph . . .

That’s right. Ephraim is the son of Joseph and a type of Christ. He is Joseph’s younger son, specifically. However, Jacob blessed Ephraim before his older brother Manasseh (Genesis 48:14-20), echoing the blessing of Jacob before Esau.

Because of the messianic references to Ephraim throughout the Old Testament, many Jewish scholars began to look for and refer to the Messiah as the “Son of Joseph.” The BAR article theorizes that the Messiah the Son of Joseph historically becomes associated with a suffering servant Messiah, whereas the Son of David is the conquerer.

Until recently, many modern scholars had dismissed “son of Joseph” references as Christian corruptions of or influences on Jewish texts. But artifacts like the Hazon Gabriel are making them think again.

Another interesting feature of the Hazon Gabriel is the reference to “three days.”

77. Who am I? I am Gabriel …….. [ ]
78. You will rescue them………….. for two [ ] …[ ]
79. from before of you the three si[g]ns three .. [ ]
80. In three days, live, I Gabriel com[mand] yo[u]

It’s the first known pre-Christian and extra-biblical reference to a resurrection on the third day. Biblically, third day resurrection has its roots in Hosea 6:1-2.

Come, let us return to the LORD;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.

Liturgists throughout the ages have long recognized the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi. The law of prayer becomes the law of belief. So if you want to reform the theology of the church, first reform its worship. Belief will follow. The same holds true of the reverse. A little superfluous drama or symbolism, a little unwarranted addition to the service of worship, can have far reaching negative consequences. In this short article I want to address the question of how children came to be barred from participation in the Lord’s Supper.

In the early church, the newly baptized were admitted immediately to the table. There is a great deal of evidence from the writings of the church fathers that this was the case even for infants.

At some point in the first couple centuries of the Church, someone had the slick idea to add a little oil to the waters of baptism. More precisely, a small element was added to the rite of baptism in which the newly baptized was anointed with oil to symbolize the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This anointing, called chrismation, was originally viewed as simply a part of the baptismal rite. It is an extra-biblical addition to the sacrament. It must have been a fairly early tradition, since it is found everywhere in the ancient churches, and also in denominations today that hold claim to the ancient church. So the alien element of oil was interposed between water and supper.

In the Eastern Orthodox churches, we can see something similar to what this rite might have looked like in the ancient church. Baptism is immediately followed by anointing with oil, and the newly baptized and chrismed is immediately admitted to the Eucharist. This immediacy in administration of the sacraments is maintained in the East because any priest could both baptize and chrismate, and then administer the elements. In the West, the story is quite different.

Conscious to guard the hierarchy of the bishopric, which it considered to be essential to the doctrine of apostolic succession, the Roman church ruled in the West that while the priesthood could baptize and administer the Eucharist, chrismation required the services of a bishop. Without the anointing, the baptism was deemed incomplete. As the church spread throughout the empire into more rural areas, it became hard to come by a bishop. Priests could administer baptism, but without the authority to perform the rite of chrismation, they could not complete the initiation of converts or their children into the new faith.

More and more, chrismation had to be delayed until a bishop passed through the area. Because chrismation was technically a part of the baptismal ritual, the baptism was not complete until this anointing of oil had been given. The result was that administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was also withheld from those who had been baptized but whose baptism had not been “confirmed” by a bishop in chrismation.

Often it could be years before the services of a bishop were available. A traveling bishop would pass through, chrismate all those who had been baptized but not confirmed, and then admit them to the table of the Eucharist. By then, those who had been baptized as infants but had never been chrismated would be old enough to be aware of what was taking place. In order to prepare these children for the anointing of oil and the partaking of the Supper, a system of catechism was introduced. The baptized would be instructed in the doctrines of the church and so made ready for chrismation and communion.

And so the Western rite of Confirmation was born. As chrismation was increasingly separated from baptism in the greater part of the Western church, confirmation came to be seen as a separate sacramental rite—one that drove a man-made wedge between baptism and communion. If you consider that chrismation with oil, whether in baptism or years afterward, is an extra-biblical practice, then the fact becomes unavoidable that this later development amounts to the unnatural and unlawful excommunication (barring from the table) of baptized Christians.

It is a curious thing that this rite continues even in Reformed churches today, albeit without the oil. Granted, they don’t consider it a sacrament, and Confirmation as such is sometimes optional or simply called something else. But the essential idea continues that there must exist a period of instruction between baptism and communion, at least for those who are baptized as infants, and a “credible confession” must thereafter be made in order to gain access to the table.

By introducing catechism as a prerequisite for chrismation, the Western Roman church placed an emphasis on understanding as a requirement for confirmation (of baptism), and thus for communion in the Eucharist. When the Reformed church rightly did away with the oil of chrismation, they nevertheless retained the rite and all its implications for the sacraments. I find it ironic that a controversy regarding the communication of children today in Reformed churches has its roots in two erroneous Roman practices: the chrismation of oil in baptism and the safeguarding of apostolic succession in the hierarchy of the church by requiring that a bishop must confirm a baptism administered by a priest.

The lex orandi of the Roman church has become the de facto lex credendi of of Western Christianity, including many Reformed Christians.

Bibliographic Sources: