RESPONSE TO THE LORD'S SUPPER ISSUE (RW 48)
Thank you so much for the special issue on the Lord's Supper! I'm ordering copies for each member of our worship committee.
I especially appreciated Leonard Vander Zee's "Too Spiritual for Our Own Good." He's right about the centrality of both Word and sacrament in New Testament worship. The early Christians celebrated the Lord's Supper weekly without fear that it would thereby become routine and meaningless.
The Emmaus Road story in Luke is particularly instructive. Written decades after Jesus' death and resurrection, this story showed second-generation Christians how Christ continues to be present to them after his resurrection. He himself blessed and broke the bread, and "their eyes were opened and they recognized him" (Luke 24:31). The importance of the narrative is shown by the verses that follow. The Emmaus travellers return to Jerusalem, and their experience of Christ is placed alongside the experience of those who witnessed his resurrection (24:34-35). Luke's message to them and to us must be that the experience of the risen Christ given to us in the Lord's Supper is not inferior to that of the first disciples on Easter morning!
Thanks for this important issue!
Robert R. Hann
Raleigh NC