Do this in remembrance of me. [1 Cor.11.24c]
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. [1 Cor.11.25c]
I rejoice that it is going well physically for you and your loved ones. God grants you this kindness so that you may all the more earnestly care for your soul’s well-being through diligent use of His word and sacrament. Just like He does with His word, God also desires diligent use of His Sacrament of the Altar.
In the Words of Institution, our Lord Himself says that we are to go often to the Lord’s Table: Do this in remembrance of me, and again, Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me, that is, we are to eat and drink of the blessed bread and cup often. The Lord does not want His Supper to be neglected and despised by us Christians, but rather “done” and, in fact, often. Therefore our Dr. Luther, a person who is experienced in Scripture, wrote the famous statement in the Preface to the Small Catechism: “When someone does not seek or desire the Sacrament at least four times a year, it is to be feared that he despises the Sacrament and is not a Christian, just as a person is not a Christian who does not believe or hear the Gospel.”
It is not a legalistic demand when our dear Savior says and has His Apostles say that we should go to the Holy Supper often; nor is it when His chosen instrument, Dr. Luther, declares that, wherever possible a believing Christian should appear at least four times a year at the Table of the Lord. In His Law, in the Ten Commandments, God indeed demands: You should! You must! The Holy Supper, however, is in no way part of the Law. It is, rather, the complete opposite of the Law: pure Gospel, pure grace, salvation, peace, blessedness, forgiveness. The Holy Supper brings and gives to us sinners, who are aware of our guilt, precisely the thing we want: God’s forgiveness.
Allow me to explain this a bit. Let’s assume that you know that tomorrow you will die. Wouldn’t you be thinking a lot today about whether you also have God’s forgiveness? Certainly! because without forgiveness no person can enter heaven. Now, it is precisely this forgiveness of all your sins that the Holy Supper gives and, in fact, even seals. It seals God’s forgiveness. What does that mean? A judge or lawyer places his stamp, his seal, at the bottom of a document as a sign that everything stated in the document is true. God’s letter to us sinners is His sweet Gospel. Everything that the Gospel says to us sinners about God’s grace and the forgiveness of our sins is the pure truth, and by the Sacrament of the Altar God affixes His seal to the truth of this to the individual communicant.
Each Christian who communes should be convinced of this: as surely as I have received Christ’s sacrificed body and sacrificed blood, just as certainly has God forgiven me, me personally, all of my sins completely and forever. In this way the Holy Supper seals the forgiveness of sins.
Is this not something that is especially worthy of praise? O how thankful we Christians should be to God for the gracious comfort of this glorious Sacrament! Whoever recognizes this even a little, will not have to be asked, “How come you only attended the Holy Supper once or twice last year?” No, as Luther says, “he would come running and racing of his own will” and compel his pastor to give him the sacrament, and by this be continually strengthened in his conviction: “I am still Your dear child, in spite of the devil, world and every sin.” May you, in the fervent longing for your salvation, often feed and strengthen your soul at the Lord’s Table of Grace! P.E.
ADDRESS AT THE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR CONFESSION
[Magazin fuer evang.-luth. Homiletik und Pastoraltheologie, vol. 37, number 12 {December 1913}, pg. 573]