The Heart Of Communion

The Great Prayer of Thanksgiving follows a pattern given to us by Jesus himself, who built upon Jewish models. Although the various churches have different versions of this prayer, a basic, fourfold structure found already in the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper is common to all: taking bread, giving thanks, breaking and pouring, and distributing.

The Eucharistic Prayer What is the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, and what does it have to do with worship? Although that title, and another term, the eucharistic prayer, may sound unfamiliar to some of us, the prayer itself is not. It is a prayer all of us have joined in many times—the central prayer in the celebration of Holy Communion. Eucharist is the New Testament Greek word for thanksgiving. So the eucharistic prayer is often called the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving. It is a unique prayer with a distinctive pattern, provided by the Lord Jesus Christ himself on the very first Easter. As Jesus walked to Emmaus with two of his disciples that day, he recounted the story of salvation: "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27, rsv). Then, when he was eating with them, he did four more specific things: he took the bread, he blessed it, he broke it, and he gave it to them. As soon as he did those things, they recognized him. It is no wonder their eyes were opened; only three days earlier, in the Upper Room, they had seen that same fourfold pattern, taking, blessing, breaking, and giving (Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19). And later, we discover in the passage we call the Institution (1 Cor. 11:23–26), the Lord delivered the identical pattern to the apostle Paul. Two Kinds of Blessing The blessing that was a part of those early Suppers was not some magical formula. It was a specific kind of prayer that first blessed God, and then asked God to bless the food. We know the first kind of blessing from Psalm 103: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, … and forget not all his benefits." This attitude of blessing God was an important part of the traditional Passover liturgy that Jesus and his disciples would have followed in the Upper Room. It was especially connected with the third cup of wine, the Cup of Blessing. As Jesus and the disciples celebrated the Passover together, Jesus would have recited a prayer (well-known to his disciples), thanking God for creation and then for redemption, recounting the history of salvation, and using phrases from the Psalms. We don't know what Jesus prayed at Emmaus, and we are not certain what Paul prayed at Corinth, but we do know, from patristic documents, that the early Christian church developed its eucharistic prayers out of these Jewish roots. We know the second kind of blessing from hearing children at the dinner table: "Lord, bless this food and drink for Jesus' sake. Amen." Jesus pronounced this kind of blessing at the feeding of the five thousand. He would also have pronounced it in the Upper Room as another part of the Passover liturgy, praying for God's blessing on the unleavened bread and on the cups of wine. This type of blessing, therefore, also became part of the early eucharistic prayers. But before long, members of the early church began insisting that the blessing of the Lord's Supper should be more special than the general meal-time blessing used in the Jewish Passover. Since this was a special kind of bread and wine—since it was the communion of his body and blood in which Christ could be recognized—these early Christians wanted the blessing of Jesus' actual presence. They asked that Jesus Christ would be as fully present as he had been at Emmaus—not only in the elements, but even more as the host of the meal, offering himself up to his disciples, just as he did in the Upper Room. They asked the Holy Spirit to come down and accomplish this miracle, a request we call the epiklesis. Thus, although the earliest Christians continued to use the Jewish forms for worship, gradually these Jewish roots began to bear new fruit. The Passover prayers were rearranged into the more unified eucharistic prayer, which included the request for Jesus' presence at the supper. Although there are many different versions of this prayer, all of them have one basic structure, framed in Jesus' fourfold pattern: (1) Take the bread and wine. (2) Give thanks. Sursum corda: "Lift up your hearts" Bless God for creation Bless God for redemption Sanctus and Benedictus: "Holy, Holy" and "Blessed Is …" Institution from 1 Corinthians 11:23 Epiclesis of the Holy Spirit The "Sacrifice of Thanksgiving" (Ps. 116:17; Rom. 12:1) The Lord's Prayer

(3) Break the bread (fraction), pour out the wine.

(4) Give them to Christ's disciples (distribution). Some versions of the prayer put the sanctus earlier; some inserted intercessions, some skipped the epiklesis; and some added a reference to the Second Coming. The medieval Roman version lost the epiklesis and most of the thanksgiving. Protestant liturgies scattered the prayer's parts throughout the whole Communion form. The Pattern of the Creed Is the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving essential to a proper celebration of the Supper? Put it this way: No other pattern available to us gets us closer to Jesus' model. Nor is any other pattern closer to the message of the gospel. The same Trinitarian pattern that summarizes the gospel promises in the Apostles' Creed (creation, redemption, epiklesis) provides the structure for the Great Prayer. So when you pray the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, you are praying the gospel promises, and you are walking with Jesus on the Emmaus road as he recounts the history of salvation. A good eucharistic prayer gives thanks for creation and then for redemption, moving through Christ's conception and virgin birth to his suffering and death and then to his resurrection and ascension. Then, because of the Ascension, the prayer claims fellowship with Christ and entrance into heaven itself, and the local congregation dares to join the worship around the throne when it sings the Sanctus and Benedictus (taken from Ps. 118; Isa. 6; and Rev. 4). The congregation begins to experience the Holy Spirit, who miraculously unites the holy catholic church in heaven and on earth and works the communion of the saints around the Table. The prayer then asks that, in our remembering and by the Spirit, the Lord Jesus himself might be present, that the bread and wine might be what Jesus said they'd be, and that through the working of faith the congregation might fully share in Christ. Usually, the prayer ends in a note of praise. Holy Communion is many things, and it has many benefits, but all are lost unless prayer is at the heart of it—not just any prayer of the preacher's own invention, but a biblically patterned prayer. If you need to shorten your Communion service, or make it less didactic and more direct and powerful, don't cut out that biblical fourfold pattern and its prayer. Without that prayer, the Lord's Supper is nothing but a ceremony or an empty chancel drama. Prayer is how we open wide the mouths of our souls for God to feed us. It is in prayer that we "lift up our hearts to God," and it is that Great Prayer of Thanksgiving that takes the roof off the church and even lets the angels in.