The Supper as a Symbol

What you may hear

Adult class, stated as the obvious reading:

“The bread and the cup are symbols — they remind us of what Jesus did. He said ‘do this in remembrance of me,’ so it’s a memorial. He couldn’t have meant his actual body; he was sitting right there holding it.”

Why it matters

Once the Supper becomes a symbol, it stops being something Christ gives and becomes something we do — an act of remembering, performed with the right sincerity. The direction reverses exactly as it does with baptism, and the same consequence follows: the value of the Supper now depends on the quality of the communicant’s reflection.

That is why this matters pastorally rather than just doctrinally. A symbol cannot forgive anyone. A person who comes to the rail carrying a sin he cannot shake needs something handed to him, and a memorial has nothing in its hands.

The words themselves are the argument, and they are unusually plain. This is my body. This is my blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Paul draws the conclusion the church has always drawn: the cup of blessing is a participation in the blood of Christ, and the bread a participation in his body.

For teachers from a Roman Catholic background, note the opposite error briefly and only if it appears: Christ’s sacrifice was made once. The Supper does not repeat it. What is given here is the fruit of that one sacrifice, delivered to individual people — which is why for you is the important phrase in the words of institution.

What to do instead

1. Read the words and stop. Do not explain the words of institution before the class has simply heard them. Most people have never heard them read as a claim.
2. Ask what the Supper is for. A symbol is for remembering. Christ says his body is given and his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Those are different jobs.
3. Refuse the mechanism question. How is not answerable and the Confession does not attempt it. Christ says what it is; we receive it.
4. Keep for you central. The Supper is not a general truth about the atonement. It is delivery, to named people, one at a time.
5. Do not turn it into a fight about other churches. Teach what is given here.

One line you can actually use

“A symbol can remind you that you’re forgiven. Only a gift can forgive you.”

If the student asks

“But how can it be his body? That doesn’t make sense.”

Do not defend a mechanism you do not have.

“It doesn’t make sense, and we don’t explain it — that’s not evasion, it’s honesty. We don’t know how. We know what he said it is, and we know what he said it’s for. When somebody hands you a gift, the useful question isn’t how it got in the box.”

The other version — “isn’t ‘remembrance’ right there in the text?” — should be granted immediately. It is right there. Remembrance and gift are not alternatives; the remembering happens while something is being handed over.

The confessional citation

Binding:

• Small Catechism, the Sacrament of the Altar, First Part — what it is: the true body and blood of Christ under the bread and the cup, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink. Decisive, and the words a teacher should be able to say from memory.
• Small Catechism, the Sacrament of the Altar, Second Part — the benefit: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, given through these words for you. The direct refutation of the memorial reading.
• Augsburg Confession X — the body and blood of Christ are truly present and distributed to those who eat in the Supper.

Supplementary, not binding here: the Large Catechism and Formula of Concord VII treat the presence at length; the Formula in particular is where the mechanism question is properly refused rather than answered.

Scripture: Matthew 26:26–28; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 1 Corinthians 11:23–29.

What not to do

• Do not attempt an explanation of the mode. A teacher who starts explaining how is about to teach something the Confessions do not.
• Do not use the doctrine to fence the rail from the front of a Sunday school class. Admission to the Supper is the pastor’s, not the teacher’s.
• Do not turn for you into a demand for worthiness. The Catechism says the one who believes these words is worthy and well prepared. Self-examination that ends in staying away has misfired.
• Do not make a symbol-holder feel stupid. He was taught it, usually by people who loved him, and usually with a Bible open.