(11.) Our Accommodating God: The Church’s Sacraments

(11.) Our Accommodating God: The Church’s Sacraments. 

“Who is able to understand the mind of Lord Yahweh? Who is able to be His teacher? We, however, have the mind of Christ!” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

An Accommodating Person is one who graciously changes plans for another’s benefit; who is willing to adjust in order to meet another’s needs; is open to adapting to changing circumstances; who is able to make concessions if needed; who makes allowances for others; who choose to oblige other and give them favors in order to be helpful; who is able to creatively shift from Plan A to Plan B if needed; who makes space for others to learn and grow; who welcomes others to fit into his own space; who makes reasonable exceptions to a general rule; who is comfortable in doing whatever it takes to be understood or to communicate effectively; who is willing to adjust expectations in light of reality; who is able to place limits on himself if it help others to flourish; who is able to step back in order to enable others to step forward.

Qualities of An Accommodating Person: Gracious; Humble; Sacrificial; Flexible; Observant; Farsighted; Insightful; Adaptable; Reasonable; Forgiving; Hospitable; Patient; Self-Effacing; Shrewd.

Our Accommodating God is willing, in His wisdom, to do everything described above, and then some. It seems to be in His nature to be an accommodating Soul, a part of His character since before Day One. God has been making concessions from before the creation of the universe, since creation itself was accomplished in the spirit of accommodation. God has also condescended to reveal His glory, agreed to His presence in the wilderness Tabernacle, made concessions to cultural realities in His Law, communicated in human language to produce holy Scripture, accommodated His word through His messengers, made Himself available through the Church’s sacraments, humbly revealed Himself with dreams and visions, and offered to us the ultimate accommodation… the Incarnation of His infinite Being to finite planet earth. God’s accommodations began before the beginning, during that eternal time before Day One, when Creator God filled everything, had always been present everywhere at the same time, and yet decided to make room for the universe. And the Lord has continued making concessions with His creation, with human beings, ever since. And that is the divine pattern to be found in our lives as well… to accommodate, to make space in our lives for God and for each other.

God Accommodating Us by Transforming Nature in the Sacraments. What are these holy mysteries other than the eternal Lord God accommodating us in a physical way so He can grow His spiritual life within us? What else can they be but God deigning to share His divine life with us, coming down and transforming tangible nature in a way that we can apprehend it and participate in His eternal life? The sacraments offer to us God’s gifts of Himself for our transformation, stooping to our level in nature to bring us sanctifying grace.

Water. “Now sanctify this water, Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit, that those who here are cleansed from sin and born again may continue forever in the risen life of Jesus Christ our Savior… Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon these your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to the new life of grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit.” (Anglican Book of Common Prayer, Baptism, pages 307-308).

Oil. “Eternal Father, whose blessed Son was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Savior and servant of all, we pray you to consecrate this oil, that those who are sealed with it may share in the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever… And now, brother/sister, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. Amen.” (Anglican BCP, Baptism, pages 307 and 308).

Bread and Wine. “Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy your Holy Spirit may descend upon us, and upon these gifts of bread and wine, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ… And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Anglican BCP, Eucharist, pages 375 and 403).

Marital Relations. “O God, you have so consecrated the covenant of marriage that in it is represented the spiritual unity between Christ and His Church; Send therefore your blessing upon these your servants, that they may love, honor, and cherish each other in faithfulness and patience, in wisdom and true godliness, that their home may be a haven of blessing and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.” (Anglican BCP, Marriage, page 431).

Oil. “O Lord, holy Father, giver of health and salvation; Send your Holy Spirit to sanctify this oil; that, as your holy apostles anointed many who were sick and healed them, so may those who in faith and repentance receive this holy anointing be made whole… As you are outwardly anointed with this holy oil, so may our heavenly Father grant you inward anointing of the Holy Spirit. Of His great mercy, may He forgive you your sins, release you from suffering, and restore you to wholeness and strength. May He deliver you from all evil, preserve you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Anglican BCP, Healing of the Sick, pages455-456).  

The physical elements above are the raw materials used in the Christian Church by the Holy Spirit to bring God’s very presence to us on earth. There are varying views of what a sacrament in the Church is, and how many of them there are. The actual word “Sacrament” is a legal term, “sacramentum,” which in Latin means “sacred vow.” It referred to the solemn vow a man would make when entering the Roman military, as well as the oath of honesty one would declare in the Roman courts. The early Christians adapted the term to designate the vows a person would take when being baptized into the Faith in a faith community. Soon other aspects of this commitment to Jesus would be called sacraments as well, such as foot washing, the Lord’s Supper, a special blessing on someone, and even marriage. The Latin Bible translated the Greek word “mysterion”, or mystery, for the Latin word “sacramentum” in various passages in the epistles. The Church then identified  many special acts of commitment and discipleship as sacred mysteries of the Faith, or sacraments.

God’s Accommodation of Grace. A grace in the Christian faith is the undeserved gift to us of being allowed to participate in the life of God. We have no right to think God owes us anything. We don’t have a leg to stand on if we start thinking we have somehow earned the right to know Him in any way. He is the eternal, almighty God of the universe. God doesn’t owe us anything. But grace is God’s profound gift of accepting us as worthy, granting us the privilege of actually participating in His life. This gift of God’s love for us is beyond imagining. Grace is the eternal fact of Creator God desiring that we approach Him and develop a relationship with Him. Grace is God’s love offering to us which He initiated and to which we simply need to respond. Any gift of God’s grace that enables us to develop this life-saving relationship with Him is a sacred mystery. So sacraments in the Church involve material elements like bread, oil, water and wine to bring God’s presence into our lives. The physical elements of the sacraments are the means that God has provided, through the working of the Holy Spirit, to grow in our faith and become more like Jesus.

The sacraments being celebrated in the Christian Church depends on the actual church. Many Protestants do not recognize any sacraments at all, and others tend to recognize two sacraments… Baptism and Communion, because Jesus in the Gospels was abundantly clear about instituting those acts of discipleship. The traditional, historical faith communities, though, namely the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, have adopted seven sacraments in its ministry of discipleship… Baptism, by which a person is born into the new life in Christ and brought into the household  of faith, the Body of Christ; Confirmation, by which a baptized person is personally affirming his faith and vowing a life of commitment to Christ;  Eucharist, by which a believer partakes of divine life by digesting the spiritual food of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, and strengthens the unity of those believers who share in this Communion; Confession, by which a believer participates in spiritual reconciliation by confessing one’s wrongdoings to a priest and receiving forgiveness from God; Healing, by which a person who is suffering with sickness of any kind receives prayers for healing and for restoration to full health; Ordination, by which a man receives his holy orders of serving others in the name of Christ; Matrimony, by which a man and a woman reflect the union between believer and God by committing themselves to a communion of life and faith with each other.

Sacrament has been described in literally hundreds of ways. Because there is a mystery involved, there may be no perfect definition to sacrament, but perhaps these descriptions will help us get a handle on what a sacrament is in the life and ministry of the Christian church:

• Outward signs of inner grace;
• Sacred mysteries to convey grace to our souls;
• Material forms of grace for our spiritual benefit;
• Visible symbols of the reality of God;
• Vehicles of God’s grace to enable believers to grow in being sanctified;
• Earthly materials by which divine life is given to us;
• A physical sign of a spiritual reality;
• The material elements that unite us into a spiritual union with Christ;
• God’s gifts of Himself in created matter for our transformation;
• When God’s grace elevates nature into being vehicles of God’s presence;
• When God’s gift of the Holy Spirit transforms matter for our own transformation;
• When God’s Spirit brings divine life to tangible elements for our benefit;
• The physical elements that are inspired by the Spirit to bring God’s influence upon us.
• Material objects that are channels God’s energy and power to believers in the Church;
• Tangible elements that bring sanctifying grace to believers;
• Created elements that usher us into participation in the divine life;
• Signs of grace entrusted to the Christian Church by which spiritual life is strengthened and empowered.

The Sacrament of the Human Person. Each human being is created from dust, from nature, has been brought to life by the breath of God, and is made in His image. So each person, born of flesh and nature and elevated by grace into a sacred sacrament. Every single person on earth is a visible sign of an visible reality of God’s presence. Profoundly speaking then, each person is a living sacrament. The following words from 20^th-Century saint John Paul II says it best, as quoted in an article in the Catholic Telegraph: “In his Theology of the Body, St. John Paul II went even farther by speaking of the sacramentality of the human body. He did not mean the human body is some kind of eighth sacrament alongside the traditional seven. Rather, he taught that because of man’s unique place in the cosmos, the human body bears some of the qualities of a sacrament. All sacraments use material things (e.g., water, oil, bread, wine) to convey spiritual realities. While composed of matter drawn from the earth, the human body at the same time effectively makes present the mysterious, spiritual reality we call “person.” In this way, the body reveals the person and can be said to be the “sacrament of the person.” Even more, because the human person is made in God’s image and is called to communion with Him, the human body also bears the capacity to make God present in a visible way: “The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it” (TOB 19:5).”