Thoughts on the Divine Service
26. The Bread and Wine
Dear friends,
Now that we’ve arrived at the distribution of Holy Communion in our walk through the liturgy, we’re going to take a little time to discuss some nuts and bolts about the sacrament.
When the Lord commanded the Passover in Exodus 12, He gave specific instructions about the meal. It was to consist of a lamb (either sheep or goat), roasted, along with unleavened bread or bitter herbs. The Israelites were to mark their doors with the lamb’s blood because the Lord was going to pass through the land of Egypt and strike the firstborn males dead, man and beast; but He would pass over the homes with doors marked with blood.
In the middle of His instructions, God declared, “It is the LORD’s Passover” (Ex. 12:11). It was not to be an interpretive rite where the Israelites could innovate as they thought best. If they followed the Lord’s directions, they could be sure their sons would live. I’m guessing that none of those Israelites opted to swap veal for lamb because “both meats come from animals, and Junior will probably be okay.”
The Lord commanded lamb at the Passover meal in part because the meal pointed ahead to Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; and the night before He shed His blood to save us from death, Jesus instituted a new meal as He ate the Last Supper with His disciples. The ingredients are simple: bread and wine.
If you follow His recipe and prepare it according to His Word, it is for the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus is quite flexible in His instructions: He calls for bread, but doesn’t specify what sort of grain is to be used for the flour; and although Passover is “the Feast of Unleavened Bread,” He doesn’t stipulate that the bread of the Eucharist be baked without yeast. We normally use unleavened bread to remember Jesus as the final Paschal Lamb, and we normally use wheat because that was the grain for use in temple offerings; but a leavened loaf of barley bread would still fulfill what Jesus prescribes. Likewise, He calls for wine, “the fruit of the vine,” but He doesn’t specify what sort of grape, or whether it be red or white.
We want to follow Jesus’ recipe, because the same Lord who gave the LORD’s Passover (Ex. 12:11) to save His people from death, has also given the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:20) to save us from eternal death. It’s not a meal for us to innovate, but to receive for our good. This is why we use bread and wine.
Some churches change the recipe, substituting grape juice for wine. There are normally three arguments for this. The first is the assertion that the consumption of alcohol is sinful, which is found nowhere in Scripture: drunkenness is a sin, but drinking wine is not. I’ve listened to tortured explanations of how Jesus turned water into non-alcoholic wine at Cana (John 2), but that’s twisting Scripture to fit a false premise.
The second assertion is that grape juice is permissible because it is also “fruit of the vine.” It’s true that both wine and grape juice come from grapes, but it’s also certain that the cup of blessing at the Last Supper was wine. Does Jesus permit us to substitute grape juice? The best answer we can give is that we don’t know—we can’t be certain. There’s no room for uncertainty here, though: we want to be certain that we’re receiving the blood of the New Testament, poured out by our Savior to deliver us from hell. As I mentioned above, I’m betting no Israelite at the first Passover opted for veal and gambled his firstborn son would survive. Even a the chili recipe calls for a cup of red wine, no competent cook is going to say, “I’m sure a cup of grape juice will be just fine.” If we’re sensible when it comes to making dinner, why would we not be just as sensible when it comes to the Lord’s Supper? Sadly, the answer lies in the third argument.
The third argument is that it’s our supper, not the Lord’s Supper—that whatever we believe matters more than what the Lord gives us in His Word. This is more common in denominations that deny the Real Presence and believe the Lord’s Supper to be a symbolic meal: if it’s merely a remembrance, why can’t we tweak it to make more meaningful or accessible?
It’s far, far better that the Lord’s Supper remain the Lord’s Supper, given for us. Follow His recipe of His words added to bread and wine, and you receive His body and blood. You receive the forgiveness of sins; and where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. What joy!
Nerdy notes are back!
• The wages of sin afflict the body, and so certain medical conditions prevent the consumption of bread and wine (e.g., celiac disease, allergies, etc.). We seek to accommodate these and stick to our Lord’s recipe. For instance, this is why our practice at Good Shepherd allows for gluten-free wafers, which have all the ingredients of bread except in different proportion—the amount of gluten is minuscule, too little to trigger a reaction. (Those in need are asked to notify the pastor prior to receiving a gluten free host for the first time.) Likewise, the center circle of individual cups features wine that is heavily diluted with water. These adjustments preserve the elements that Jesus specifies.
• As a bit of nearly-useless trivia, grape juice in its current form was invented by Rev. Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welch. A pastor of the Wesleyan Methodist Church which forbade the consumption of “intoxicating liquors,” Welch developed the process of pasteurizing grape juice specifically to provide it for use in worship. The Welch’s company exists today because of poor theology … but still manages to make some pretty tasty juices and jams!
• One more bit of nearly-useless trivia, because some have argued that grape juice didn’t even exist in the 1st Century. It did: it was called “trux,” a Roman beverage for which they harvested the grapes, squeezed the juice into stone jars, sealed them shut with wax and stored them underwater in cold-running rivers. This was not the “fruit of the vine” present at the Last Supper, and earliest records of the Passover note the use of wine.