Confessing Evangelical

Following on from my previous posts on the Lord's Supper and the frequency of its celebration, Dr Hermann Sasse has some good thoughts on these topics in his essay "The Lord's Supper in the Lutheran Church", from We Confess The Sacraments.

Dr Sasse opens his essay (originally composed in 1949 as a letter to Lutheran pastors in Germany) by quoting the Augsburg Confession on the subject of "the Mass" (p.98):

We are unjustly accused of having abolished the Mass. Without boasting, it is manifest that the Mass is observed among us with greater devotion and more earnestness than among our opponents. Moreover, the people are instructed often and with great diligence concerning the holy sacrament, why it was instituted, and how it is to be used (namely, as a comfort for terrified consciences) in order that the people may be drawn to the Communion and Mass. The people are also given instruction about other false teachings concerning the sacrament. Meanwhile no conspicuous changes have been made in the public ceremonies of the Mass. [AC 24 1-2]

Dr Sasse argues that this confession of the Lutheran fathers "makes us aware of the quite enormous difference between our divine service and that of the Reformation and how far removed our modern understanding of the Lord's Supper is":

Who of us today would still dare to state that we have not abolished the Mass, the divine service comprising the proclamation of the Word and the Lord's Supper? No Christian of the Reformation, apart from the followers of the Reformation at Zurich and Geneva, could conceive of a Sunday divine service without the Lord's Supper, just as already in the church of the New Testament there was no Lord's Day without the Lord's Supper. And no one would probably dare to maintain that this divine service was celebrated with greater devotion and earnestness than by the Catholics.

The centrality of the Mass is central to the life and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in a way that should be true of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (and was true at the time of the Augsburg Confession, and for centuries afterwards):

If one asks for the secret of the vitality of the Catholic Church even in our time, one would have to admit that it is not its hierarchical organization, not its cult of saints and relics, not even, as many suppose, its traditional political astuteness that gives it its inner strength and predominance, but the fact that it celebrates the Sacrament of the Altar uninterruptedly throughout the world. This determines its whole life, even its whole theology.

(Though as Dr Sasse goes on to point out, the Roman Catholic Supper has been "mutilated" by the withholding of the cup from the laity and by false teachings, particularly those regarding the sacrifice of the Mass.)

Dr Sasse continues (p.101):

What the church of the Lutheran Reformation possessed and what modern Protestantism has lost, what Catholicism before the Reformation had largely forgotten and what modern Catholicism has largely learned to understand again is the simple truth of faith in the real presence of the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in, with and under the forms of bread and wine in Holy Communion.

Though I do wonder whether Dr Sasse is being a little overoptimistic about what "modern Catholicism has largely learned", and the implication that the Roman position has significantly improved since the Reformation: last time I looked, the Roman Catholic Church was still teaching the sacrifice of Mass, and most Roman Catholic churches seemed not to have availed themselves of the post-Vatican II concession giving the laity access to the Cup. But this is supposed to be a post about the Lutheran Church, not about Roman Catholicism, so let's move along.

Sasse argues that people commune more frequently the more fully they understand what they are receiving when they go to the altar (p.101):

Because they knew what they received there, the people of the old Lutheran Church went to Holy Communion. Because they know that at the altar they receive the body of Christ, Catholics in our time are going to Communion in ever growing number.

Dr Sasse argues that the lack of enthusiasm for Communion among Lutherans stems from a failure by Lutheran pastors to ensure that "the people are instructed often and with great diligence concerning the holy sacrament", which needs to include "instruction about other false teachings concerning the sacrament" (such as the teachings of Calvinism/Zwinglianism). But the start of the process of restoring "the Mass" to the Lutheran Church is to just do it (p.109):

Our first task is to celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar again and again quite seriously, but also with the blessed joy of the first Christians (Acts 2:47).

To be fair, things have improved since Dr Sasse wrote these words in 1949. I was startled to discover recently that a few decades ago most LCMS congregations were still practising quarterly Communion, which I had thought to be the preserve of the Wee Frees and (as mentioned in my previous post) certain ultra-snakebelly Anglican evangelicals.

But if the statistics in the sample chapter (PDF) for this book are to be believed, 35% of LCMS churches have at least one Communion service each Sunday, and fewer than 15% celebrate the Sacrament of the Altar less than once a month. It is to be hoped that the new Lutheran Service Book, with five settings of the Divine Service but no separate "Divine Service Without Holy Communion", will further encourage the trend towards more frequent Communion. Sometimes things don't, after all, go from bad to worse.