Praying Eucharistically. . .

Praying Eucharistically has come to be a discussion about a Eucharistic Prayer.  While they are truly and essentially related, they are not the same.  In fact, part of the problem lies with the fact that many Eucharistic Prayers belie the name and are not praying Eucharistically.  They are, like most of our prayers, requests for God to do something more than a remembrance or rehearsal of what God has done -- with the rejoicing and thanksgiving that are the Spirit driven response to what God has done.  I maintain that the problem with the Roman Canon as Luther knew it was that it was not all that Eucharistic.  It was, instead, filled with all kinds of language and petitions that vitiated against thanksgiving.  The priest was pleading with God to accept the sacrifice offered but God's people were not being bidden to be thankful for the sacramental grace of Christ and receive it with faith, eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ.  The whole structure of the canon, even without the Roman form excised by Luther, is itself a prayer of thanksgiving to God.  It does not begin when people presume, when the Pastor begins to prayer, but rather begins with the preface.  It is the great call to give thanks and then the reason for this thanksgiving.  

Preface

P The Lord be with you.

C And also with you.

 

P Lift up your hearts.

C We lift them to the Lord.

 

P Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

C It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

The Lord be with you is the standard greeting of pastor to people and people back to pastor. We remember this from Ruth and David and the maidservant and Amos and Joshua and Paul (and others).  These are not preliminary or perfunctory words.  They are the beginning of the thanksgiving.  Then hearts up to the Lord.  And the call becomes more pointed:  Let us give thanks!  It is always right to give thanks -- because the Lord has always been gracious, merciful, giving, and forgiving.

Proper Preface

It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to You, holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who accomplished the salvation of mankind by the tree of the cross that, where death arose, there life also might rise again and that the serpent who overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the cross be overcome. Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying:

 

Ah, now we have something to give thanks for -- Jesus Christ, who accomplished our salvation.  And how did He do it?  He who by a tree once overcame was by a tree overcome.  Wow.  The living tree of the Garden that become the tree of death meets its match in the dead wood of the cross (also a tree) which gives life -- life now and forever!  That is praying Eucharistically!  

At that, we sing.  We sing with thanksgiving.  Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might (Sabaoth).  Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.  That is Eucharistic song that even the heavenly voices cannot resist.  But we have barely begun.  Pray on!

P Blessed are You, Lord of heaven and earth, for You have had mercy on those whom You created and sent Your only-begotten Son into our flesh to bear our sin and be our Savior. With repentant joy we receive the salvation accomplished for us by the all-availing sacrifice of His body and His blood on the cross.

Is there anything more profound to prompt our prayer or define it than Christ's one, all-sufficient sacrifice of His flesh and blood on the cross?  Can anything be added to this?  Of course not!  This is the height of the thanksgiving mountain.  And, if you will bear with me, this IS the place for the Words of Christ with which He instituted the Sacrament of His body and blood and by which His body and blood are present for us to be received with thanksgiving and in faith.

 

Then we hear the words of St. Paul:  For as often as we eat of this bread and drink of this cup we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.  These Eucharistic words of the moment are the constant refrain of the people of God and the Church until He comes again.  Amen!  Come, Lord Jesus!  So here in this moment we echo the urgent prayer of the ages:  Maranatha!

P Gathered in the name and the remembrance of Jesus, we beg You, O Lord, to forgive, renew, and strengthen us with Your Word and Spirit. Grant us faithfully to eat His body and drink His blood as He bids us do in His own testament. Gather us together, we pray, from the ends of the earth to celebrate with all the faithful the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end. Graciously receive our prayers; deliver and preserve us. To You alone, O Father, be all glory, honor, and worship, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 

We are still praying Eucharistically.  We are praying that the body and blood of the Lord Jesus may have its way with us -- forgiving, renewing, and strengthening!  We pray that nothing will prevent His gift and grace from having its way with us.  We pray that what here we receive as foretaste will be our eternal food at that day of the Lord when the Church on earth and the Church in heaven are no longer separated by time and space but one and one forever with the Lord.  And, bear with me again, we give thanks to Him who makes this possible:  Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory are Yours, almighty Father, now and forever.  Amen!

 

There is only one thing left to do.  To rehearse again the acts by which God has delivered us.  And this the Pastor does while bidding us to pray as Jesus taught us:

 

P O Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, in giving us Your body and blood to eat and to drink, You lead us to remember and confess Your holy cross and passion, Your blessed death, Your rest in the tomb, Your resurrection from the dead, Your ascension into heaven, and Your coming for the final judgment. So remember us in Your kingdom and teach us to pray: 

 

C Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on  earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

There is the Eucharistic Prayer so feared by some and that is praying Eucharistically.  Would that we learn how to do this and I am confident the whole issue would be laid to rest for Lutherans.  Luther did not ever address such an evangelical Eucharistic Prayer nor did any of our Reformers over history (except the present day) and I am confident that no one could find fault with such a prayer in which Christ was so center and the Gospel so centrally proclaimed.