Mining the Riches: Take, Eat!

By Rev. J. Bart Day

What joy we have in singing the glorious words of the seraphim in the Communion liturgy. The Sanctus soars to the heavens as our voices are blended together with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven. But for Isaiah and for us, there is more than a song. In the throne room, Isaiah was confronted with his sinful flesh and his unclean lips. He would surely die. Yet, God is merciful. One of the seraphim gathers a burning coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah’s lips. That coal is a burning remnant from the daily offering of the whole burnt offering; the male lamb slain granting the penitent access to God’s favor and acceptance in His sight. The gift was forgiveness and peace with God.

In the holy liturgy, we confess our sins and eagerly await the word of Absolution. Surely we, like Isaiah, should die. Yet, God is merciful. From the altar, under the bread and wine, comes the burning coal, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29; 1 Peter 1:18–19), Jesus the once-for-all burnt offering, the body and blood of Christ offered for the life of the world. Christ into us, our guilt is taken away, and our sin atoned for.

What a true joy that so many come to receive the precious body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. But how should we receive this burning coal of salvation? Some receive the body of Christ directly into the mouth, while others receive Him in their hand. Is one right and the other wrong? Is one form of receiving the body of Christ more appropriate than the other?

The two manners of receiving the Host—directly in the mouth and in the hand—both reflect a genuine theological piety and tradition within the Church and deserve our careful attention. First, let us look briefly at the history of the Church.

The earliest surviving liturgical texts tell us that the holy people of God in both the Eastern and Western Churches received the body of Christ (the Host) in their hands. The practice was abandoned near the start of the Middle Ages partly out of fear that persons receiving the sacred body in their hands might carry it off for some frivolous purpose, or even for some darkly sacrilegious purpose, and partly because of the increasingly widespread idea that respect for the holy body of Christ precludes our touching holy things with unconsecrated hands.

Perhaps most important for us is how, from the earliest times, they received the precious body of Christ. Cyril of Jerusalem has left us his famous instructions on approaching Communion with hands extended and fingers closed, the left hand serving as a throne for the superimposed right hand whose palm is to receive “the king,” the body of Christ. Philoxenus of Mabbug gives us instructions that when you have extended your hands and taken the body, bow, put your hands before your face, and worship the living body whom you hold. Then, say: I carry you, living God who is incarnate in the bread, and I embrace you in my palms, Lord of the worlds whom no world has contained. You have circumscribed yourself in a fiery coal within a fleshly palm—you Lord, who with your palm measured out the dust of the earth. You are holy, God incarnate in my hands in a fiery coal which is a body. See, I hold you, although there is nothing that contains you; a bodily hand embraced you, Lord of natures whom a fleshly womb embraced.Within a womb you became a circumscribed body, and now with a hand you appear to me as a small morsel.”

The Host was not picked up by the fingers, placing it into the mouth. Rather, both hands, serving as the throne, were raised to the mouth, receiving the body of Christ.

This reverence for the presence of Christ is still reflected in such great Communion hymns as “Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face” (LSB 631). In the first stanza, we sing:

Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face; Here would I touch and handle things unseen; Here grasp with firmer hand the eternal grace, And all my weariness upon Thee lean.

Equally significant is the rise of receiving the Host directly into the mouth. Despite the abuses, which led the Church to place the Host directly on the tongue so that people might see it being consumed, this was not the common understanding among the laity for such a change in practice.

The act of being fed by another person is a very intimate act. We might ever think of a newly married bride and groom feeding each other the wedding cake. Receiving the body of Christ directly into the mouth came to symbolize the Christian’s complete dependence on receiving all things from the hand Christ, even His own body. The particular pastor at the time of the distribution then becomes insignificant. The pastor is there to serve only as a table steward of God’s mysteries and is privileged to feed God’s children with the very bread of life. This reverence for the presence of Christ is reflected in another great Communion hymn “O Living Bread from Heaven” (LSB 642). In the second stanza, we sing:

My Lord, You here have led me To this most holy place. And with Yourself have fed me The treasure of Your grace; For You have freely given What earth could never buy, The bread of life from heaven,That now I shall not die.

In the most ancient liturgies of the Church, immediately before the Communion the celebrant would raise the gifts and say aloud, “The holy things for the holy people.” How blessed we are through our Baptism into Christ to be holy people. It is as holy people that we joyfully approach the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. At the altar, He invites us to come and receive the most precious foretaste of heavenly bliss. Here the coal touches our lips, and the cup marks the doorpost of our heart. Whether received upon the throne of our hand or placed upon our lips, our posture for receiving these heavenly gifts will always be reverent, and our attitude always one of thanks and praise.

Rev. J. Bart Day is associate pastor and headmaster of Memorial Lutheran Church and School in Houston,Texas.You can e-mail Rev. Day at revday@mlchouston.org.