April 8: Seeing with Eyes of Faith

I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus Christ, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. I Cor. 11:23-24

St. Paul was not in the upper room where the Last Supper took place. He wasn’t a Christian at all until much later. Yet he still received the gift and promise of Christ Himself, from Christ Himself, with a commission to pass it on. That gift and promise is Holy Communion.
As a church named after St. Paul, it makes sense that we have been focusing lately on passing on what we received. The whole Rededicated Campaign to the next generation has been our effort to say to people forty years from now, “What we received from the Lord through St. Paul and across all these generations, we also delivered to you.” It also makes perfect sense that regular Communion is at the heart of what we’re all about. But it also makes sense that we might not always receive that gift in the normal way at the normal time. After all, St. Paul didn’t.

The times we live in—call them odd, terrible, confusing, unique, frustrating, interesting, whatever they might be in your mind—have interrupted the normal flow of things here for all of us. The Board of Deacons met last night (via Zoom) to discuss how best to proceed as a congregation in terms of offering communion during Holy Week and Easter. Pastor Stock and I have looked at what other congregations and church bodies have done, and indeed, there is a wide array of approaches out there, with many pros and cons. We looked at all of them and at the specifics of our own context.

Our goal is to keep everyone safe, keep Christ at the center of our personal and congregational life, keep our confidence in the efficacy of the Sacrament absolute, and keep everyone in the congregation connected to Christ. In order to balance all of those competing goals, we have decided to offer Services of the Word online until such time as we can come together again as a congregation for Word and Sacrament. (We will not deny the Sacrament to anyone who asks out of desperation due to a crisis or emergency situation, but that would be on a case by case basis.)

Maundy Thursday without Communion? It seems like if there was ever a time to focus on the Sacrament, it would be then. And Communion will still be the focus, but as a matter of preparation. We have been doing a Lenten series about eyes and seeing, and Maundy Thursday’s theme is More Than Meets the Eye. The eyes of the world simply see a ritual with some bread and wine. Only the eyes of faith see the truth of the matter, that in, with, and under that little ritual with bread and wine is Christ giving Himself for the life of the world and His Church being nurtured in faith.

Tomorrow’s service, therefore, will focus on the importance of those eyes of faith. We will not waste this unexpected pause in the normal flow of services. We will embrace it, using the “down time” to focus on preparation. Normally I do that on the Wednesday of Holy Week with all the confirmands and their families in preparation for their first Communion. We use Christian Questions and their Answers from Luther’s Catechism.

Tomorrow’s sermon will take the confirmands and the whole congregation through that preparation as we focus on Communion while receiving the gift of Christ another way, building up the eyes of faith. Unless you call with an emergency, the next time you take Communion will be some weeks from now; hopefully not many, but we cannot know quite yet. If we use this time wisely, then the day we do come together again for worship will combine the best aspects of two things that otherwise are nearly impossible to combine-- first and familiar. It will be much anticipated and well prepared for, like a confirmand’s first Communion.

But for most of us it will also comfort us with the familiarity that only years of faithful repetition brings. But most importantly of all, whatever it feels like, it will be Christ for you, the same Christ who is with you even now, and who invites you to pick up a cross and follow Him. That cross-bearing includes, for the time being, the cross of not receiving every blessing He has for you (at least not yet). But in spiritual yearning and with the gifts He does give us, we view the events of Holy Week, the Sacrament, St. Paul’s, your life, this day, and even the disruption of this pandemic through the eyes of faith.

In Christ,
​Pastor Speckhard