TRANSFORMATION, NOT PROXIMITY (7 OF 8)
Scripture: Haggai 2:10-19
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Transformation, Not Proximity (7 of 8)
Series: Getting Back to What Matters Most
Wyman Richardson
Haggai 2:10-19
Read Haggai 2:10-19
In G.R. Evans' very interesting biography of John Wycliffe (the 14th century Christian who is sometimes called ''The Morning Star of the Reformation''), she talks about the questions that common Christians had at that time about transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is the Roman Catholic belief that the substance of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Jesus in the eucharist. That is, while it still looks like bread and wine in its externals, its substance is ''transubstantiated'' into something new, the body and blood of Jesus. And this belief gave rise to some very interesting questions.
For some centuries people are known to have asked awkward common-sense questions [about transubstantiation], such as where the substance of the bread 'went'; how the whole of Christ's body could be contained in a wafer; or conversely, how all the wafers consecrated over the centuries were not much greater in quantity than the real body of Christ; or how Christ's body could be 'all there' in one place, parish after parish, when a number of Eucharists were celebrated all at the same time; or what happened when a crumb fell to the ground and a mouse ate it. (Was there some salvific effect upon the mouse?)
That last question-would a mouse be saved if a crumb fell to the ground and the mouse ate it?-reveals some of the absurdities that a ''magical'' view of Christianity can bring about. We rightly chuckle at the idea that mere physical contact with the elements of the Lord's Supper might have some saving effect on the soul. And, of course, we do not believe that the supper itself has saving properties. We believe, rather, that it points us to the Savior, Jesus, who alone saves.
But that kind of magical approach is more common than we think. If I step into a sanctuary, does that not make me holy? If I sing the hymns does t ...
Series: Getting Back to What Matters Most
Wyman Richardson
Haggai 2:10-19
Read Haggai 2:10-19
In G.R. Evans' very interesting biography of John Wycliffe (the 14th century Christian who is sometimes called ''The Morning Star of the Reformation''), she talks about the questions that common Christians had at that time about transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is the Roman Catholic belief that the substance of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Jesus in the eucharist. That is, while it still looks like bread and wine in its externals, its substance is ''transubstantiated'' into something new, the body and blood of Jesus. And this belief gave rise to some very interesting questions.
For some centuries people are known to have asked awkward common-sense questions [about transubstantiation], such as where the substance of the bread 'went'; how the whole of Christ's body could be contained in a wafer; or conversely, how all the wafers consecrated over the centuries were not much greater in quantity than the real body of Christ; or how Christ's body could be 'all there' in one place, parish after parish, when a number of Eucharists were celebrated all at the same time; or what happened when a crumb fell to the ground and a mouse ate it. (Was there some salvific effect upon the mouse?)
That last question-would a mouse be saved if a crumb fell to the ground and the mouse ate it?-reveals some of the absurdities that a ''magical'' view of Christianity can bring about. We rightly chuckle at the idea that mere physical contact with the elements of the Lord's Supper might have some saving effect on the soul. And, of course, we do not believe that the supper itself has saving properties. We believe, rather, that it points us to the Savior, Jesus, who alone saves.
But that kind of magical approach is more common than we think. If I step into a sanctuary, does that not make me holy? If I sing the hymns does t ...
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