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| Do This As My Memorial | | Date Created: Jun 26, 2004, 10:36 PM |
| I've uploaded an old sermon on the Lord's Supper to the PRPC website. I preached this sermon almost 10 years ago—on September 11, 1994. A couple of friends have encouraged me to post it here. Perhaps it will help. Much of the content comes from reflection on James B. Jordan's work on the biblical texts relating to OT memorial rituals. The text is 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. In this sermon I present an extended argument for understanding and doing the Lord's Supper as a "covenant memorial." Unfortunately, the biblical meaning of "memorial" has been obscured by intra-Protestant polemics. The debaters often seem like they are playing a game of "Pin the Tail on the Body of Christ." As if what's most important in the Lord's Supper is correctly identifying the proper ontological location of Jesus' flesh and blood. Then, too, the real meaning of the memorial Supper has been also been buried under the heap of Protestant pietism's reductionistic practice of "remembering" Jesus at the Table. For many it is little more than a flannel graph for adults, a time of intense personal devotions centering on the cross of Jesus. Nevertheless, when the Bible speaks of "memorializing" rituals it has nothing to do with metaphysical questions about the location of the body of Christ or with stirring up private devotional thoughts about Jesus' crucifixion. So what is the point of a covenant memorial? You'll have to listen to the sermon. The first minute or so of the sermon has been cut off, but the introduction is still intelligible. You can download the 8.2 mb mp3 file by clicking here. |
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