The Sacraments Flow from the Wounds of Christ

Rev. Paul Gregory Alms

Why do you make such a big deal about Baptism? Why do you talk so much about the Lord’s Supper? Isn’t being a Christian about Jesus? Isn’t being a Christian really just about Jesus dying on the cross for my sins?

As a Lutheran pastor, I have heard questions like these. As a Lutheran person, you might have also. You may have even thought things like this yourself. Sometimes we can be tempted into thinking the Sacraments are distractions. Shouldn’t we just talk about Jesus? Why do we have to make a big deal about water and bread and wine? It is important to realize that these are questions that are asked and sometimes even by Lutherans themselves. It is even more important to know some answers to these questions.

The first thing to realize is that, yes, it is all about Jesus. Christianity—being a Christian, being a Lutheran—is all about the cross of Christ. It is all about His death for us sinners. Jesus is at the center. Jesus is God and man in one person. He is the Word made flesh and the Alpha and the Omega, and He was born of Mary, and He suffered, and He rose again, and He opened heaven. And He did it all for us. He did it all for you, to give you eternal righteousness.

But here is the thing: the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are Jesus. They are His death, His blood, His sacrifice for us, His redemption. What does Jesus say to you at Holy Communion? “This is My body; this is My blood.” What does Holy Scripture testify about Baptism? All of you who were baptized were baptized into Christ’s death. To be baptized, to take the Lord’s Supper, is to come into contact with Christ’s death in an intimate, personal, and real way. God uses material, created things, and with these things He gives you Christ and His cross. To receive these Sacraments is to receive Christ and His suffering and death for your forgiveness.

The Church has always understood this and pictured it and said it in graphic ways. When Christ was put to death, St. John tells us that water and blood flowed out of His side. The Church has seen this water and blood as a vivid picture of the Sacraments coming directly from Christ and connecting us to Him. In fact, there was a pithy saying in the Early Church and in the Middle Ages: “The sacraments flowed out of the side of Christ.” Martin Luther himself approved of this saying. Artists pictured Baptism and the Lord’s Supper actually springing out of the pierced side of Christ on the cross. Many artists portrayed Jesus as a lamb with the blood of His wounds flowing into a chalice for Communion. Some have pictured both the blood and the water being collected in a cup for His Church.

The point of the saying and the pictures is to proclaim what the Scriptures tell us: the Sacraments connect us to Christ. They give us Christ and His gifts. When we are baptized, we participate in Christ’s death. When we receive the Lord’s Supper, we drink the very blood that was shed on Calvary for our salvation. What we confess and believe such pictures display to us. That is one of the magnificent benefits of such art work. We can see with our eyes the saving truths of the Scriptures.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are big deals. They are big deals because they are filled with Jesus. They are Sacraments that connect us to Christ and His death and resurrection for us. We need not imagine or dream or search for Jesus. His cross, His sacrificial love for us, is given to us for sure to know and feel and trust in and through Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Rev. Greg Alms is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Catawba, North Carolina, and can be reached at almspg@aol.com.