Title: THE LANGUAGE OF SACRAMENTAL SIGNS
Focus: God speaks and communicates to us through sacramental signs and church symbols. Learn to respond appropriately to these signs and symbols.
Function: To help the people become aware of the powerful influence of sacramental signs and church symbols. Such signs and symbols communicate to us but also call us to live the life of Christ faithfully and consistently.
Text: I Corinthians 10:14-22
I’m holding before you a little box that contains a beautiful American flag. This flag flew for a short while above the American embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Our son, Elliot, gave it to us as a reminder of his first tour of duty as a U.S. Marine, guarding the palaces and embassies in the green zone in Baghdad a good two years ago.
This flag means much to Rosanne and me. Yes, it stirs up pride in our son and in all service men and women. It also reminds us of our nation—with its democracy, its freedoms, its values, its history, and its opportunities. I know that the American flag means a lot to most if not all of us. It’s a powerful and precious symbol that speaks to us today.
Now why is it that you and I are moved and stirred by this symbol while some other Americans—still thinking of themselves as patriots--will not hesitate to burn or step on this flag? I think it is because some of us open ourselves to and embrace the power of the symbol, while others close themselves to that power or choose to ignore the messages and language of this flag symbol. Many value the flag as a treasure; others see it as no more than a rag.
And that leads me to the text and the message today: God speaks and communicates to us through sacramental signs and church symbols. We do well to become aware of the powerful influence of sacramental signs and symbols; they communicate to us but also call us to live the life of Christ faithfully and consistently.
When you become a Christian you will have to deal with signs and symbols. The CRC has two dominical signs and a few ecclesiastical symbols. Jesus himself, as our Lord (or dominus) has instituted two signs: the Lord’s Supper with its Cup of Thanksgiving and Bread, and baptism with its sign of water. These are sacramental signs found in the Scripture. As Christians we value these dominical signs very highly.
Then there are many church symbols. Throughout the centuries, the Christian church has made use of such symbols, for example, as the Bible, the cross, the pulpit, the lectern, ashes, oil, and incense. Depending on our awareness of the power of symbols and our openness to let these influences shape us, we value these symbols differently. For example, many here will value very highly the Bible. And should I step on it or treat it with contempt, you would be very upset, and rightly so.
But most of us here probably could not care less to have a lit candle standing in the midst of the congregation. Yet, there are thousands of churches today that value the symbol of a lit candle and allow it to speak to them and shape them for the good.
What is it about sacramental signs and church symbols that we need to know and embrace? Let me make some observations:
(1) God speaks and communicates through signs and symbols. We have conditioned ourselves to think that God tends to speak only through his Word. We are Word—and words—oriented. But God makes use of signs and symbols to underscore his spoken Word. And we do well to embrace these signs and symbols, so that we are further shaped and formed in the mind of Christ by their symbolic influence and language.
Christians in the western world tend to have difficulty believing that God can speak to us through material stuff, through dust, through creative, physical things. We tend to think that God speaks through spiritual—non-material ways. We tend to value the spiritual, and devalue or minimize the physical. That’s more a Platonic or Greek way of thinking, however, than a Biblical way. God speaks and communicates through signs and symbols.
(2) God uses sacramental signs as a means of grace. Signs and symbols such as bread and water are tools or instruments in the hand of God; he communicates himself—and all his grace—his gifts, love, promises, healing, salvation, and presence—through these gifts. The CRC’s Contempory Testimony puts it this way: (Segment 40) “God meets us in the sacraments, holy acts in which his deeds elicit our response.” Or listen to what we say in the Belgic Confession about sacramental signs: (Art. 33) (God has ordained sacraments for us) “…to seal his promises in us, to pledge his good will and grace toward us, and also to nourish and sustain our faith. He has added these to the Word of the gospel to represent better to our external senses both what he enables us to understand by his Word and what he does inwardly in our hearts, confirming in us the salvation he impart to us. For they are visible signs and seals of something internal and invisible, by means of which God works in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. So they are not empty and hollow signs to fool and deceive us, for their truth is Jesus Christ without whom they would be nothing.”
So, we do well to rid ourselves of that notion that says that the L.S. is nothing more than just a sign that helps me to think about my sins and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. For God uses sacramental signs as a means of grace--a means to communicate himself, and all his riches to us as we participate in the truths and realities represented by these signs.
And that leads us to the passage and texts of tonight’s scripture reading.
THE PASSAGE
The apostle Paul is writing to the church in Corinth. He warns the Christians there to “flee from idolatry.” Now for Paul “idolatry” is a comprehensive term. To be sure, it refers to the worship of idols. Going to the temple of Aphrodite and offering gifts to her by participating in sexual intercourse with temple prostitutes is a form of idolatry. Offering prayers or sacrifices to Zeus or to Neptune and asking for their favors is a form of idolatry.
Again, to be sure, Aphrodites, Zeus and Neptune have no power by themselves—they are nothing more but false gods; but behind them stand the servants of the devil. False gods represent demonic powers; paying allegiance and attention to false gods and to what they represent, means being in cohort with the devil and his minions. Paul tells us NOT to participate in the works of the devil. That’s why he says: “Flee from idolatry.”
But then Paul does something very interesting: he defines idolatry in the context of O.T. Israel. He uses the O.T. people of God as a sign from which we must take our cues; we must learn from their rebellious ways—and their outcome. Thus Paul can say in 10:6 “Now these things (these stories of rebellion and disobedience) occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry. We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did….’”
Paul, then, points to O.T. Israel as a sign through which God speaks to us today. It’s like O.T. Israel cries out to us today: “Learn from us.” “Do not go the route of idolatry.” “Turn to the living God. Live by his ways!”
Then Paul goes on and makes use of New Testament sacramental signs. Paul holds before us the cup of thanksgiving and the loaf or bread used in the Lord’s Supper. These sacramental signs speak of union with Christ, a fellowship with Christ’s story, his death, his resurrection and ascension. The cup and the bread bond us together as Christ’s people; and they call us to live Christ-like lives; to participate in the story of God’s salvation; they call us to live holy lives, faithfully and consistently.
Consider, for example, the power and the shaping influence of these sacramental signs. The keyword used by Paul is the word “participation” or “fellowship.” Listen: “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? (Implied answer: Yes!) The cup and the bread and our eating and drinking of these elements connect us with Jesus himself, with his story, his works, his riches, his promises, his presence. Through these sacramental signs Christ communicates himself to us, connects us with him, and with one another as the worldwide church or body of Christ. Such is the power and influence of partaking of the sacramental sign.
The power of
the sacramental sign is also found in its call to us to live a holy life. The
sign of the L.S. shapes us spiritually and holds us accountable. Paul reminds us
that participating in the sign of the L.S. means that we must flee from a
lifestyle of idolatry and sin. For says Paul: “You cannot drink the cup of
the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s
table and the table of demons.”
A few weeks ago, a bunch of secular progressive, outrageously
dressed people entered a Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco and they
participated in communion. Their participation was a clear mockery of the
sacrament. And most sensible people realized that you cannot live and condone a
lifestyle that is demonic or immoral or idolatrous and at the same time
participate in the story and life of Christ. These outrageous secularist loons
were eating and drinking judgment on themselves.
Paul warns us that we must pay attention to sacramental signs and church symbols. God speaks through them: he encourages us; reveals himself to us; bind us to himself and to one another; God feeds and nurtures our spirit; God strengthens and stirs our faith; and God calls us to live unto him a life of faith and trust in him. Ignoring the sign, rejecting their power, closing our eyes to their shaping influence is not wise.
Here is what we must learn to do: We must open ourselves to the notion that God speaks through material things, dust, creative, physical things such as a cross, a candle, oil, a table, a pulpit and an icon to move us and shape us as followers of Christ.
A few years ago I served the Beamsville CRC. At one time, during the season of Advent, we made use of a candle. Normally, when the elders and I, as the pastor, would enter the sanctuary the worship service would begin. For the elders represent the Lord Jesus who calls us to come together for worship.
That particular Advent season, however, the “elder of the day” would shake my hand, wish me God’s blessing as I would lead in worship, and then the elder lit the candle. We told the congregation that the candle signifies or speaks of the presence of Christ in our worship. Christ, the light of the world—him we need in this dark world. Him we need to see with the eyes of faith. And so, we demonstrated the need for the light of Christ in our midst by lighting the candle at the very beginning of the Advent worship services.
Funny thing happened in this CRC: the sign of a lit candle spoke so deeply to the congregation that the elders decided to make a permanent candlestand and to light a candle at the very beginning of every worship service. The language and voice of the lit candle spoke volumes of gospel or good news to the congregation.
All of this goes to show that God makes use of carne—flesh, physicality, dust to take hold of us and reconcile us to himself. That’s why God send his eternal Son, the Word or Logos of God—into the world. That’s why the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ, the Savior of the world. That’s why we celebrate Christmas and Easter. That’s why we embrace that Word of God that says in Hebrews 1:2,3 “…in these last days (God) has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact icon (representation) of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful world.”
I think that the Son of God in the flesh is THE sacramental sign through whom God does wondrous things for us and in us and through us, so that we may become to him children of God.
The incarnate Jesus reminds us today that God speaks and communicates to us through sacramental signs and symbols. We must learn to respond appropriately to God’s signs; they communicate to us but also call us to live the life of Christ faithfully and consistently.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.