Why do we celebrate the Lord’s Table on Sunday?

Before the Protestant Reformation, the Mass was at the center of the Roman Catholic Church. Even the church architecture demonstrated this with the altar in the middle and the priest as the mediator of the ongoing sacrifice of Christ. The Reformers, with Martin Luther and John Calvin leading the way, rejected the idea that a priest was necessary to mediate salvation or offer the Mass as an ongoing sacrifice. Instead, faith came through hearing the Word of God. The primary role of the pastor was no longer performing sacramental duties but teaching and preaching. Preaching went from an occasional event, sometimes limited to high holy days, to a regular feature of every Sunday service. We unpacked the centrality of Exposition in The Press last week. But did the Mass go away?

Though much debate persists to this day as to the exact nature of The Lord’s Table, for every Protestant, the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation (the physical transformation of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood) is rejected and the bread and cup do not have any sacrificial element to them. The Lord’s Supper is a memorial of a completed sacrifice, not a re-sacrificing of Christ, nor an addition to what He accomplished on the cross. The apostle Paul gave extensive instructions to the church (1 Corinthians 11:17-34, with some cultural specifics directly to the Corinthian church), clearly stating – “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26) He did not tell them how often to do it, but that when they do it, they are to do it “in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthian 11:24-25) While the sacrifice of Christ “is finished”, the once-and-for-all, never-to-be-repeated work of Christ is to be remembered and celebrated by the Church. For this reason, we obey this command, and our practice is to invite all believers to come to the Table monthly as an act of worship and remembrance that Christ did it all … all to Him we owe!