WEEKLY ARTICLE

Questions and Answers: What Happens at Communion?

Weekly Article by the Rev. Matt Kennedy
February 23rd, 2006
The Church of the Good Shepherd

A parishioner recently sent in the following question. “What exactly happens to the bread and wine at Communion?”

This is a very good question and a very controversial one.

I suppose on one level the answer is very simple. On the night before he died on the cross, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. But instead of the regular Passover ceremony and the regular words, Jesus changed everything.

He said words that no one had ever said before:

Taking the Passover bread in his hands he said, “Take, eat: this is my body” (Matthew 26:26)

Taking the cup of wine he said, “Drink from it all of you. This is my blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28)

We know from Paul’s instructions in 1st Corinthians 11:23-34, that very soon after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into heaven (within 15 years at least, if not from the very beginning) the early church began celebrating this new meal using the same words Jesus used “this is my body…this is my blood…” to bless or to “consecrate” the bread and the wine before sharing it in the context of worship.

And for many years afterward the Church continued to celebrate Communion with the simple assurance that in some way Jesus was present in the bread and the wine.

But as time went on theologians, scholars, and regular believers wanted to know more. They began to wonder about what actually happens when the celebrant repeats Jesus’ words.

The Church offered a variety of answers until the latter half of the middle ages when many, following St. Thomas Aquinas, settled on the doctrine of transubstantiation.

The doctrine of transubstantiation asserts that when the priest repeats Jesus’ words, the words of institution, taking the bread and saying, “This is my Body…” and then taking the cup of wine and saying, “This is my Blood…” that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine and become, fully and completely, the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ all the while retaining the appearance of bread and wine.

The substance of the bread and wine is completely transformed, but it still looks the same to the human eye.

This doctrine held sway until the Reformation when, appealing to better translated biblical manuscripts, various Protestant groups began to come up with new doctrines.

While the Roman Catholic Church still holds to the doctrine of transubstantiation today, almost all Protestant bodies have developed their own special way of thinking about Communion.

On one end of the Protestant spectrum, Baptists, Assemblies of God, and similar congregationally based denominations tend to think of Communion as simply a memorial fellowship service, a family meal of remembrance. They argue that nothing special happens to the bread and wine at the words of institution. The elements remain the same in substance and appearance. In fact, most of these churches don’t even use real wine. Communion, for them, is a purely symbolic family meal recalling the death of Christ and proclaiming his resurrection.

On the other end of the Protestant spectrum, Lutherans believe in a process called “Consubstantiation”. At the words of institution the bread and the wine are changed, but not utterly. Just as Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine, the bread remains fully bread and the wine remains fully wine, but they also become, fully, the real body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

Somewhere between the Baptists and Lutherans, the Presbyterians, following John Calvin, don’t so much believe that the bread and wine is changed as they believe that the community is transported. At Communion heaven and earth converge. Christ is not brought down into the elements, but the Church is taken up to Christ. The bread and wine are changed. They do, at the very least, become the spiritual body and blood of Christ, but there is no substantial change in the elements themselves.

Well, what about Anglicans?

The 28th Article of Religion states:

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.


Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of The Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.

The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.

This article rejects the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and the more Baptist idea that the meal is purely symbolic, but beyond that, it does very little by way of definition.

There is that phrase, “The Body of Christ is given, taken and eaten, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner” which seems to favor a more Presbyterian understanding, but we are on shaky ground if we try to narrow the focus any more than that.

You can, in truth, find Anglicans who believe in almost all of the above theories.

The one thing Anglicans have historically insisted upon is that when the priest says the words of institution the bread truly becomes the body of Christ and the wine truly becomes his Blood.

But what happens….consubstantiation, corporate transportation or some form of spiritual non-physical change?

Generally speaking, apart from Article 28 above, Anglicans don’t even try to answer this question.

In that sense we carry on the simple faith of the early New Testament Church.

Jesus promised “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood”.

We believe him.

We rejoice in his biblical promise to be present in the bread and the wine without struggling to work out the details.

We are confident that when we go forward to receive Communion we are receiving Jesus and that, in itself, is more than enough to satisfy.

Home  Sermons Contact Us  Links Last Week's Article