Mean's of Grace - Lord's Supper

There are many name for the Lord’s Supper – the Sacrament of the Altar, Holy Communion, Eucharist and yes even, the Mass. This last phrase is uniquely Roman Catholic. Sometimes “the Mass” refers to the whole worship service. You could ask a fellow church member, “When was the last time you went to Mass?” and he would understand that you wanted to know when was the last time he attended a worship service. When we refer to just the Lord’s Supper, to a Roman Catholic the Mass is the unbloody resacrifice of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin. That is why there are priests in the Catholic Church – because they are still sacrificing Jesus. Jesus died once for all. When he cried out on the cross, “It is finished!” there is nothing more that needs to be done for us to reach heaven. It goes directly against Scripture to say that we are sacrificing Jesus all over again. When a person compares Scripture to the teaching of the Roman Catholic church in regard to the Lord’s Supper, or the Mass, it is clear that something doesn’t line up. That is one of the reasons why Luther left the Catholic church.

Luther didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and neither do we. The Lord’s Supper is a precious gift to us from Jesus. It is one of the three means of grace where we can regularly come to our God to taste and see how much he cares for us. It is a pipeline of God’s grace to our hearts. May we regularly receive the Lord’s Supper and find the comfort and forgiveness that God offers in it. Want to learn more about the Lord’s Supper? Watch this week’s sermon taken from Matthew 26.