Sacrifice and Communion (original) (raw)

Eucharist as Sacrifice

Deepak Lakra, 2021

45 The "zebah" is a meal eaten in God's presence and, using our typology of the divine, is personal-conjunctive (Type I) in tendency. It has been argued that God was conceived as sharing the meal, united to the donors by co-consumption of the victim. J. DUNNILL,

THE EUCHARIST: CUP OF SACRIFICE, BANQUET OF THE KINGDOM

Two aspects of the Eucharist-as Cup of Sacrifice and as Banquet of the Kingdom-are discussed here not from a purely theological and academic standpoint but from the perspective of Eucharistic spirituality. Concern for Eucharistic spirituality means that we want to celebrate the Eucharist the way we should, which connotes realizing on the levels of life, relationships, and social responsibility the meaning and vision that Christ himself had for and through this most sublime Sacrament. What we hear, say, and do in our Eucharistic celebrations should influence our thinking, speaking, and behaving beyond the confines of the celebrative time and space. The Eucharist must become the source of Christian discipleship to which we are called, following Jesus in his love that culminated in his sacrifice on the Cross.

Eucharistic Sacrifice and Lutheran Worship

It is a common misconception among Lutherans that Martin Luther rejected the idea of a sacrificial component to the Eucharist. This misconception promulgates itself in the absence of sacrificial terminology in Lutheran Eucharistic prayers and in the liturgy at large. Traditional arguments against sacrificial terminology in regards to the Eucharist have been less nuanced than those of Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. Though more modern scholarship and the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogues of the past 50 years have produced some liturgical and theological synthesis on this issue, this emerging consensus has not made its way into the liturgical language or catechetical instruction of Lutheran churches. This paper will discuss to what degree it might be possible, even ecumenically and pedagogically advantageous, to recover a distinctly Lutheran understanding of the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist by reincorporating sacrificial terminology into the Lutheran liturgy.