An Anabaptist Theology Of The Lord's Supper

The sixteenth-century Anabaptists followed Ulrich Zwingli, the Reformer of the city of Zurich, where the first wing of Anabaptism originated, in viewing the Lord's Supper as a memorial, or sign, of Christ's death. However, they believed that Christ was profoundly present in their hearts, even if the bread and wine were not the vehicles to accomplish that presence. Their emphasis on the Lord's Supper as a simple fellowship underscores the fundamentally communal nature of their theology of the Eucharist.

A Sign of Inward, Spiritual Union with Christ Like the Protestant Reformers, the sixteenth-century Anabaptists denied that Communion bread and wine are Jesus' literal body and blood. The bread, they insisted, is simply bread; the wine is simply wine; and the Lord's Supper is a simple fellowship meal—not a ritual. Anabaptist leaders, some of whom had been associated with Ulrich Zwingli, employed his language, calling the Lord's Supper a memorial, or sign, of Jesus' death. As such the Lord's Supper expressed, above all, the divine love. It may seem as if the Lord's Supper, for the Anabaptists, was simply a reminder of a past event. However, in denying what seemed to them a crude, mechanical identification of Christ's presence with the eucharistic elements, they were seeking to stress a profound notion of his presence. This presence was both spiritual and communal. Anabaptists frequently claimed, as did some late medieval sacramentarians, that eating and drinking are often used figuratively in Scripture to mean believing and trusting. Consequently, all who truly receive Christ by faith partake of his flesh and blood in the most important sense (esp. John 6:25–71). Many Anabaptist writers expressed this in deep mystical language. Jesus, said Melchoir Hoffman, gives himself as a bridegroom to a bride, lovingly uniting his innermost heart with ours. Just as the food humans absorb becomes one with our nature, Hans Denck and Dirk Philips affirmed that so too we absorb, and are transformed by, his divine nature (though we do not, of course, literally become God). Such a union, clearly, can arise only through active spiritual communion, never through mechanical reception of physical elements. When they stressed that the Lord's Supper was a sign, Anabaptists often meant a sign of this kind of spiritual reality, and not only of a historical event. But if Christ could be eaten and drunk in a wholly spiritual, inward way, why should one celebrate the outer ceremony at all? Some contemporaries of the Anabaptists, called Spiritualists, actually dispensed with it. But Anabaptists refused to dispense with it. Why? The Communal Dimension When believers gather around the Lord's Supper, not only does Christ share himself with them through the bread and wine. Believers also share bread and wine with each other. And through this sharing, believers are drawn more closely together as a community. "?Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread?" (1 Cor. 10:17, rsv). Anabaptists often recalled an image found as early as the Didache (c. 100–150): As individual grains must be broken and ground to make a loaf, and individual grapes pressed to make wine, so must Christians die to themselves and be transformed to make up Christ's body. The Lord's Supper, then, was also an occasion on which fellow Christians openly pledged themselves to each other. While Christ was offering himself to each one fully, even unto death, so did each Anabaptist, strengthened by Christ's presence, offer to share burdens and possessions with, and even to die for, the others. Since such gatherings were extremely illegal, participants knew that they might soon be dying for each other quite literally—as after the original Last Supper. The Lord's Supper, then, could be celebrated rightly only among those willing to serve, love, and walk with each other. Footwashing, which expressed this willingness and which had accompanied the original Supper (John 13:1–20), was sometimes included. Failing to discern the body (1 Cor. 11:29) meant participating without this attitude. Conflicts, accordingly, had to be dealt with before or in the context of the When the Anabaptists denied Christ's physical presence in the bread and wine, they meant to point towards a more profound presence which was, on one hand, mystical. They experienced Jesus' life and love, poured out decisively on the cross, transforming them in the present at the deepest levels. And since they experienced this as they shared bread and wine, Jesus' presence was also communal. (Their insistence that the Supper be a fellowship meal, not a ritual, was designed to enhance this communal sense.) Further, since this sharing involved commitment to live and die for each other, Christ's presence was, or at least pointed towards, what we today call ethics. The Lord's Supper, to be sure, memorialized a specific, bloody, historical event. But in its celebration, Christ was also really present. Where? Christ was not literally in the elements, was not simply in the words of institution, and was not merely in the individual's faith considered by itself. Christ's Real Presence was first and foremost communal.