“The Second Sacrament”

by John Christianson

August 20, 2006

John 6:51-58

⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

What does Jesus mean by all this “cannibal” language? “Eating my flesh” and “drinking my blood?” It sure sounded strange to the folks who were listening to him back in this 6^th chapter of John. To us, it’s not so strange. We hear it, and right away we shift gears and realize that Jesus is talking about Communion, the Lord’s Supper, The Sacrament of the Altar, to Catholics the central event in the Mass.

Many years ago I heard a minister argue that Jesus couldn’t be talking about the Sacrament here because this takes place in the middle of Christ’s ministry and there wasn’t any Lord’s Supper yet, not until the night before he died.

But this is the Gospel of John, and there’s something very curious about this book. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – all four gospels – tell us about our Lord’s last supper with his disciples on Maundy Thursday. But only three of them tell about the most important thing that happened at that table. John never mentions it. He devotes five whole chapters to the Last Supper, ten times as many as any of the other three gospels, but you read all those chapters and you don’t have a clue that Jesus ever took the bread and said, “This is my body,” the wine and said, “This is my blood.” You hear those words every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, but you don’t find them in John.

Have you ever heard how the name of God is so holy to Orthodox Jews that they never write it out completely. They write G – D. Well, that’s how John treats the Lord’s Supper. Protect it from unholy eyes! Don’t mention it where it occurs! Instead, here in the sixth chapter, just half-way to Maundy Thursday, suddenly we have the most profound teachings about the Sacrament in any of the four gospels without ever saying that that’s what Jesus is talking about. Teachings for Christians, but hidden from the uninitiated – the untaught – the unbaptized. If Baptism is the First Sacrament, then Communion is the Second Sacrament. It’s not always about deep ideas and theology. Sometimes, it’s a warm hug from your Lord.

Carroll Hinderlie was a missionary to the Philippines when the Japanese drove out Macarthur and took over the islands. He and his pregnant wife were among the many who were thrown into a concentration camp. They saw each other through the wire fence that separated the men’s and women’s compounds. Rations were notoriously meager, but whenever he could he passed a portion of his rations over to Mary. When his daughter was born, he saw her through the fence. By the time the American forces re-took the Philippines, the robust 200 pound Carroll had become a frail 90 pounds. They came to get him from his cell. Instead, he asked them to get Mary and bring some bread and some wine. The board that for so long had been his bunk became an altar. Before he left it, he and Mary knelt beside it, celebrated the Second Sacrament, and gave thanks, and cried. There are times when you don’t want a sermon – just a hug – and God sends a Sacrament.

Dr. Fritz Middlefort was a highly regarded Wisconsin psychiatrist. I took a Seminary Class from him: “Psychiatric Case Study Seminar.” One day he became personal. He said,

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Gentlemen, God has blessed me with a very fine mind. I’ve always learned easily. I never needed to study as many hours as my classmates, but always ended up at the top of the class. It’s a blessing, but sometimes I think it’s a curse. I’m always analyzing and criticizing. I’ll sit in church and listen to a sermon and find fault with it. ‘That’s a very weak point. That thought isn’t logical. Why should I listen to this minister’s sermons? I’m a much smarter man than he is!’ I’m always tripping over my mind in church. But then the usher comes for me to go to the altar, and I do. And I hear the words, “This is my body.” “This is my blood.” And it totally bypasses my mind. God has kept me in the church by one thing, and one thing only – the Sacrament of the Altar.

Communion is the Second Sacrament. First comes Baptism, then comes Communion. That’s the way it has always been. That’s the way it should be. It’s a rule – except when the Holy Spirit messes around with it. He often ignores our rules. I think that’s why Jesus made that delightful triple pun just three chapters earlier in this gospel of John. “The wind blows where it chooses,” he says. [John 3:8] But in Greek the same verse also means “The breath breathes where it chooses.” Or, get this, “The Spirit inspires where he chooses.” In other words, consistency is not something the Holy Spirit worries about.

Buzz Kahn, out in Seattle, was a very intelligent Jewish agnostic. He knew that religion had been important to his mother, so he tried to find God. He read the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Qu’ran, the Book of Mormon, the Upanishads. Nothing satisfied him. He married a Lutheran woman. Sometimes he went to church with her, but it never meant much to him. Maundy Thursday, 1956, they tried to decide whether they should go to the evening services. Yes. No. Yes. No. I heard him describe it.

“Somehow, I ended up saying “Yes” once more than my wife did. So there I was, an agnostic Jew, driving all by myself up to the Maundy Thursday evening service. The minister didn’t know who I was, and he didn’t know I was there, but the sermon spoke directly to me. He said this last supper was a Jewish Seder. Well, I knew all about that. Every year we observed it in my parents’ home, “Why is this night different from all the other nights?” The unleavened bread, the bitter herbs. I knew all about it – but I didn’t know how Jesus had completed the Passover. That’s what the minister talked about.

“Then came the Lord’s Supper. The bread, ‘my body.’ The wine, ‘my blood.’ The invitation. I knew it wasn’t for me. Not for agnostic, unbaptized Jews. But I couldn’t hold myself back. When the usher stopped at my pew, I didn’t just go. I ran up. I received the body of the Passover Lamb, and the blood, and tears were running down my face. I’m sure people were staring at me when I walked back to the pew. I was sobbing. For the first time since my mother died I was crying. I had just met my mother’s Lord. She never knew him, but I had met him and how I wished I could tell her about him.

“Three times on my way home I had to stop and wipe my eyes so I could see the road.” The next day, Good Friday, my wife and I drove to church and interrupted a very busy pastor in his study. “I’m Buzz Kahn. I’m an unbaptized Jew. I met Jesus last night when you gave me communion, and now you’ll have to help me get baptized.”

Buzz has now served for fifty years as a youth director, then a lay minister or a seminar leader. But that’s how Buzz Kahn first received the Second Sacrament – except for him I guess it was the First Sacrament, wasn’t it. Oh, that Holy Spirit!

So if you like to think, Pastor Jim gives great sermons, and he’ll be back the end of October. But if sometimes you just need a hug from God, an experience, something that bypasses your brain, there’s also an opportunity for that, here at the altar every Sunday. And no matter how great a job Dick the custodian does, you may find footprints in the aisle leading up here – among them, Carroll Hinderlie’s, Fritz Middlefort’s and Buzz Kahn’s and millions of others. But it’s not just for them. It’s for you – given and shed for you, for the remission of sins. The Second Sacrament.

Amen.

(Comments to John at john.christianson@comcast.net )

Saron Lutheran Church

Big Lake, MN