Sacramental

Passage: Lord’s Day 25; 1 Peter 1:1-12

Water in a bowl. Little cubes of white bread on a plate. Tiny plastic thimbles of grape juice set in the perfect-sized holes of their custom tray. Otherwise mundane objects whose presentation gives them a special significance. Earthly things that, interacted with in the right way, resonate with heaven. Sacraments.

What are the sacraments? John Calvin pontificates that they are,
“…external sign[s], by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good-will toward us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in turn testify our piety towards him, both before himself, and before angels as well as men. We may also define more briefly by calling [them] a testimony of the divine favour toward us, confirmed by an external sign, with a corresponding attestation of our faith towards Him.”
Or, more succinctly, “a visible sign of a sacred thing, or a visible form of an invisible grace.” [Institutes, Book IV, 14.1]

The Heidelberg Catechism calls each sacrament a “sign and a seal” of God’s grace. God extends the overture of his grace. By his grace God invites us into right relationship with him. We in turn perform actions that symbolize that God’s grace has taken effect in our lives. We also, by our actions, align ourselves with God’s will – we demonstrate to the world that we are good with God and good with what God is doing.

When we baptize new believers and the babies of believing parents, we together acknowledge that it is God who has drawn the person into covenant relationship. And we commit ourselves to the work God will continue to do. When we take the bread and drink the cup we testify that Jesus gave up his body and blood to atone for our sin and raise us to new life. And we declare that from this point forward we will live the new life he has given. The sacraments are our statement of belief in what God has done for us and our submission to what God will do in us.

As such, our two sacraments are the worship expression of a life that is, in every part, sacramental. Every moment of our life in Christ – every thought, word, and act – has eternal, spiritual significance. In every moment we may declare before people and before God and even the angels of heaven either that we are good with what God is doing or that we are not. In his first letter the Apostle Peter invites his church to live the sacramental life. He says,
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Throughout each day we are given circumstances. In response we will testify to the nature of our faith. Do I believe that through Jesus I am reconciled to a gracious and merciful God? Do I believe that God is using every circumstance of my life to draw me closer? Are my thoughts, words and actions “visible signs of sacred things”? These are the questions of the sacramental life.