The Criteria of Communion Part 2

Let's pray and we will get started. Lord Jesus, as we again open up your Word and study the sacrament of the altar and what is it that makes a valid observance of the Lord's Supper, we pray for your Holy Spirit coming to you with empty hands, knowing that we cannot rightly understand your Word apart from your Spirit.

So we ask humbly that you would help us and guide us into all truth and that you may be glorified in all that we do. In Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, all right. So today we're going to continue with our study of the Lord's Supper.

The Lutheran View of the Lord's Supper Versus Rome and Evangelical Symbolism

We noted that the Lutherans have a view that's different than Rome and different than much of Protestantism. Rome claims... Yes, sir? Oh, we had a question about the sermon. We've got to get that taken care of first.

Yes, Mark. Mark, glad you're here. Yes. Probably just distribution. You know, so here are your options, okay? You have everybody stand up and wait in lines. That's not going to work. So Jesus was treating them like sheep, and so he had them to divide up into smaller groups.

And then you'll note there were 12 baskets full left, and so who was doing the serving? The disciples, the apostles, the guys who become the apostles. That Christ was multiplying, you know, he was multiplying these things.

They were taking baskets and then distributing them. And so who were the waiters? It was the disciples. Yeah, that's right. That's why there were 12 baskets full left, you know, just a little, yeah. So they use that text for small groups?

Okay, yeah, yeah. No, it's really just a matter of logistics and distribution. And so Christ willed that his disciples be the one, because remember what he said to them, you feed them, right? And so they did.

Yeah, they did. Now, it doesn't say how long the distribution took, and it doesn't tell us if they were serving water and like, you know, nice tortilla chips and salsa while they were waiting. It doesn't say anything like that, but you get the gist of it.

And then also, sometimes when I preach on this text, I always point out that the liberals who deny that miracles take place, their explanation as to what took place is so ridiculous. I mean, they say, well, in the gospel of John, they said that the five loaves and two fish belonged to a little kid.

He had brought his lunch with him. And so when everybody saw that he was selflessly giving up his own lunch, everybody broke out their coolers that they were sitting on and hiding. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it wasn't that either, you know, but yeah, you get the idea.

All right, so a little bit of summary. The Lutherans say that Rome is wrong in their doctrine of transubstantiation. And the reason why we say they are wrong is because they have forgotten how to count.

And Rome, when it comes to the Lord's Supper, if you ask them, what are you receiving? Only the body and blood of Christ. Bread and wine do not exist. They are there, and it looks like bread and wine, tastes like bread and wine, because Aristotelian logic.

That's the reason why, and this concept of an accident. And so it only accidentally looks like and tastes like bread and wine. And so we point out, okay, let's kind of work this out. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup.

And by the way, that's an interesting phrase, drinks the cup, because you'll note that I don't actually drink a cup, you don't drink a cup. What we're referring to are the contents of the cup. And so the idea here, eats the bread, drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy man, he will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord.

And so the idea then is that when we receive the Lord's Supper, the Lutheran just counts to four and says, well, there's bread, there's wine, and Christ's body and blood are present. We don't know how.

Really, when it comes to the actual process that takes place, we're not privy to that. We stay within the bounds of scripture, and it is what Christ says it is. And then for those who are our evangelical brothers, who like to point out that they believe that this is a symbol, we point out that symbol is not present, and that that's not a word that's in this text, and that the body and blood are also mentioned, and that to take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner means to not recognize it, or to see that it's there.

And that was the presenting problem. The church at Corinth, they were getting drunk on the communion wine, so we say to our evangelical brothers and sisters, I know it sounds Catholic, but it's not. Christ's body and blood are truly present.

And this then, when we recognize that this is a covenantal meal, rather than it being an ordinance, a law that we're keeping, or a command, when we're having the Lord's Supper, we're receiving from Christ something that's vital for our faith.

Faith, Good Works, and Vocation in Ordinary Life

And so as a Christian pastor, you're going to note that I preach to you all as if you're Christians, right? And funny enough, years ago, I actually had somebody come up to me after a sermon and go, you know, pastor, I just figured this out.

What'd you figure out? You are preaching to all of us as if we're all already Christians. And I said, well, yes, of course. I mean, it was a Christian congregation that called me, and she said, well, don't you think that's dangerous?

I'm all, no, because if you're not a Christian, Christ will make you one, or his word will drive you away. You know, the Word of God has this amazing ability to draw sheep to care for them, and it also has this amazing ability to drive away goats.

Goats do not like the Word of God. They really, really are annoyed by it, and they bear a grudge against the men who preach it. And so you get the idea. But that being the case, then, as Christians, we are saved by grace through what?

Faith, not by works. And now, this is not to say that good works aren't important. They are absolutely necessary, and I want to make no bones about it, but they're not necessary for salvation. They are necessary by virtue of salvation.

What does James say? Just as the body that is not breathing is dead, faith without works is dead. You know, you sit there and say, I'm a Christian, and I believe in Christ, but I have no good works. I say, you're a liar, okay?

They necessarily follow, absolutely necessarily follow. And so there is an aspect to good works that good works are the breath of faith. They show that we actually have a living faith. But then that begs the question, what's a good work?

I would say, see Ephesians 5 and 6. Our good works are done in the vocations that God has put us into as husband, wife, father, mother, child, employer, employee. So the vast majority of our good works are done in the mundane.

They are not done in the super special, all right? I love that picture that C .S. Lewis gives in the book, The Great Divorce, which is a fascinating book on multiple levels. C .S. Lewis, he held on to a form of platonic thought, and so in his literature, you'll always note that the evil characters, they have less substance than those who are good.

So those who are evil are described as kind of like having thin skin or almost being transparent in some way or another. This is insipid Platonism that still kind of crept into his theology and his apologetics.

But in the book, The Great Divorce, the story is about a bus trip from hell to heaven. And apparently the way the story goes, the setup is that in hell, once a week, a bus shows up from heaven, and anybody who wants to, in hell, can go and visit heaven.

And that's the gist of it. They're not barred from coming. And kind of the punchline at the end is rather interesting, and I think Lewis was on to something here, is that he noted that everybody who is in hell wants to be there.

It's kind of a weird thing that he says, but I think he's right. But in this trip to, this particular bus trip, which again, it's a once-a-week bus. You can line up for it in hell and then take the trip to heaven.

When you arrive, loved ones who are in heaven, either family members or friends or people that you know who are in heaven, they come to greet you when you get off the bus. And so what's really fascinating is that Lewis describes that the people who get off the bus, they have a hard time walking around heaven because everything is so sharp and jagged to them.

To walk on the grass hurts their feet because their feet are practically nothing. And then there's this one fellow whose wife is in heaven, and he ended up in hell, and he was somewhat abusive to her.

You can kind of tell in their dialogue. And yet in this conversation, she was very patient with him. And in the middle of all of this, one of the things he says, I only want to get what I deserve. He's insisting on that he gets what he deserves.

And his wife, who's in heaven, is probably saying, no, you really don't want that, because you can have grace instead. And so he has this self-righteousness that he's hanging on to, which is part of the reason why he's in hell.

And so what's interesting is that while they're talking, this parade goes by in the sky. It almost sounds like a Kat Kerth kind of thing. But in the parade, the angels were trumpeting, and this very important person was going by.

And the guy says, wow, she must have really been an important saint. And his wife says, no, she was a wash lady. She lived in the south of London, and in her good works, she cared for the orphans on the streets.

You would have never known her. And I thought that was kind of a good point, is that this idea then is that our good works are done in the mundane. And when I was in evangelicalism, and I've talked with a lot of people in megachurches who've come out of megachurches, they always have this belief that somehow their family, their children, their spouse, or even their current job is getting in the way of the good works that God has called them to, which is one of the insipid errors of the purpose-driven dream destiny kind of doctrines, that God created you for a specific dream destiny purpose.

But scripture is clear in Ephesians 2 .10 that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural, which God has prepared in advance for us to do. And so we can do our good works as children. We can do our good works as young adults.

We can do our good works as adults who are raising children. We can do our good works as grandparents. We can do our good works as great-grandparents. And it's all done in the mundane. How is it done?

It's in the preparing of meals, the changing of diapers, in educating, and all the things that we do to care for those whom God has put into our life, loving our spouses. These are the ideas, then. So our good works are done there.

And I'm off on a little bit of a tangent, but you get the idea. So all of that being said, coming then back to the Lord's Supper, to take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner is to not recognize the body and blood of Christ that are present.

And so again, I say to the evangelicals, we recognize this sounds like Rome. It's not. In fact, Rome has pretty much anathematized our view because they've dogmatized their transubstantiation. And the idea, then, is that the Lord's Supper is a gift.

It is not a work. When you turn it into a work, it becomes something that you do for the purpose of gaining something from God. I've done my part. God does your part. Instead, Christ invites us to the table, and you hear the words, this is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

And I always like to point out to people, every time they have the Lord's Supper, they're receiving an individual absolution from Jesus. And so it's really easy at the beginning of the service when we do the general confession of sins.

I confess that I am by nature sinful and unclean, right? That when you hear the absolution, if you've had a particularly difficult week or maybe a season where it seems like the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh have just been getting the best of you day after day, stringing into week after week, and you're thinking, my kids are gonna, I'm gonna murder them if I have to deal with them any longer, you know, things like this.

What ends up happening is that it's really easy when you hear a general absolution to say, yeah, but. That it didn't really apply to me. If pastor knew, you know, how sinful I've been, you know, and how struggling, how much I've been struggling and not living the victorious Christian life, he would have never pronounced the absolution.

That's the devil talking. So when you come to the Lord's Supper and you receive the bread, wine, body, blood, I say these words, take, eat, this is the true body of Christ given into death for the forgiveness of your sins, and it goes into your mouth.

No one else's, just yours, right? Because, you know, at that point you recognize, all right, so forgiveness of sins tastes like some chewy bread and some really cheap, sweet wine. It is, by the way, the worst stuff ever.

Okay, I like wine. Right? But here's the thing. When you hear those words, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins, you can't deny that that was given to you, put in your mouth, and that the promise of the covenant is that God will remember to forget your sins.

That's the promise in Jeremiah 31. So it's easy then when the devil says, you know, do you really think you're a Christian? Because, you know, you're sure not being victorious, and you just sit there and tell the devil, go take a hike, you know, I'm forgiven in Christ.

And what it does is it strengthens your faith. It gives you something, it gives you something outside of you that's been put into you that your faith can hang on to, the promise that was attached to it.

Regardless of how cheap the wine is and how sweet it is, you can say, I have the blood of Christ that was given and shed, and I've consumed it, and the promise is there for me. And so the idea then is that the devil would always want to convince you your sin is special.

It's not. Okay? It's really not. It's like, in fact, so many people think that the doctrine of original sin is like something that they do. I've really found an original sin. No, you haven't. It's like everybody does the same stupid, dumb things.

There's no original sins nowadays. None whatsoever. And so your sin is not special. You're not a super special sinner. Get that out of your head. Christ died for all of your sins. And so receive and believe, and that's the idea.

1 Corinthians 10, Baptism, and Examples from Israel's Wilderness Judgment

Now then, talking about the other aspect of this, and you'll note how the Lutherans answer the questions that come up in 1 Corinthians 10, and I want to put it back in its context because we're talking here about idolatry and also a way of looking at the Old Testament.

I always like to point people to the fact that the New Testament tells us how to understand the Old, because if you've ever scratched your head and said, I can't understand the Old Testament, read your New Testament a few more times and it'll explain it to you, okay?

1 Corinthians 10 then hits on the aspect of how some of the things in the Old Testament are written as examples to us to warn us about, you know, how seriously God takes sin, and it's recalling us back to repentance.

Repentance is not a flu shot. It's not a COVID shot. Repentance is something that is a daily habit, a walk for Christians. So Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, our fathers were all under the cloud, they all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses.

If you remember in the sermon today, I mentioned the fact that when God brought the children of Israel out of slavery, he took them to the Red Sea, and that was their baptism. The Red Sea is a picture of baptism.

I remember years ago when I was teaching junior high kids at a Missouri Synod congregation in Greenville, Indiana, we were looking at the story of the Exodus, and I took them to this passage, and I marched all the kids into the sanctuary, and we were standing around the baptismal font, all right?

And I said, so what happened when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea? They went through safely, one kid pointed out. What happened to Pharaoh? Well, Pharaoh and his army chased them, and then what happened?

Well, God smashed them to bits. The water came in, and they all died. And then what does it say happened to their bodies? They came up on the shore. I said, so a good way to picture baptism, I said, take a look at the baptismal font.

Pharaoh and his army, they're a stand-in for the devil. So when you were baptized into Christ, into his death, this was your Red Sea moment. And so look very closely around the edge of the baptismal font, you can see the the dead bodies of the demons, you know, on the basin on the outside of the bowl, and I thought that was kind of cool.

But, you know, that's really the picture there, right? So they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud, in the sea, and they all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink, for they all, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

What? What? What? Yeah, that rock, you know, that Moses struck, that was Christ, right? That rock is a type and shadow of Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased. They were all overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things took place as examples for us. So note, there's an example portion of scripture, right? You know, the cross, Christ dying for our sins, is not a for us to go and live like the devil. Far from it, okay?

It says, these took place as an example for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

You got to think kind of Woodstock here, you know, that whole golden calf incident, you know, that Woodstock is probably a good modern reference to kind of what went on. They rose up, so it was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, man.

You know, all in the name of this ape as bull that they created, and named Yahweh, which was weird. They were having a feast to Yahweh. This is weird. So we must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some did, and 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

Now, have you ever heard some yahoo say something like, well, how come in our day, God doesn't strike down all the people who are engaging in sexual immorality today, huh? Does he not care anymore? Of course he cares.

In fact, if you want to persist in your sin, you want to know what's coming, just look at what happened to the people who engaged in sexual immorality. They stand as an example for us. So basically, God says, this is what's coming for you.

Just because God doesn't strike people down today, doesn't mean that somehow he winks at sin. And you want to know the seriousness of sin, look at the fact that it took the Son of God bearing your sin on the cross in order to redeem us.

So you get the idea. So we see these examples, and they're held up as examples for us. Not that God has to repeat it every generation. He doesn't. He's done it once, and then that's your example. So then you get the warning in the book of Revelation, talking about those who are cast into the lake of fire, the cowards, the sexually immoral, the idolaters, you know, the list goes on, right?

And so their judgment in the Old Testament stands as an exemplar, an example for us of what's coming in the judgment, and this is why we do not wink at these things. So don't engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did.

23 ,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. Notice here, Paul seems to think that that whole thing in the book of Numbers regarding the fiery serpents, the Nechashim, Seraphim, that they weren't putting Yahweh to the test, they were putting Christ to the test, because Christ is Yahweh.

So who were they testing by grumbling against God? They were putting Christ to the test. Or grumble, as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the destroyer. So these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.

Therefore, let anyone thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. It's a sure formula for disaster, by the way. When I am strong, then I am weak, but when I am weak, then he is strong. And so don't think that somehow you have the ability in and of yourself to stand against the temptations of the devil, the world, your own sinful flesh.

The person who trusts in himself trusts in a fool. So don't think you're strong lest you fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man, but God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

Now, this is an actual promise in scripture. It gets twisted in different ways, but note this is the context end of temptation. So there you are. You are tempted by evil. You have a clear choice in front of you.

Do I go the way of the devil and my own sinful desires, or do I go this way, right? In and of yourselves, you do not have the power to choose the right. So what do you do? You faithfully say, Lord, your word says I will not be tempted beyond my ability.

I'm feeling I'm close to that threshold right now. Please, through the power of your Holy Spirit, deliver me from this temptation and from the evil one through the power of your Holy Spirit, right? And so note that you sit there and go, but my temptations, they're huge.

Great, then your ability is a lot bigger than you let on. You know, that's the implication here. So he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will always provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

Now, no, that's the context. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. When idolatry leers its ugly head, you do what they did in the Holy Grail. When they saw that bunny, run away, run away, run away, right?

Do not stick around for that stuff. When you see idolatry, you know, coming into the church, doing, you know, it's wicked stuff. Run away. I speak as the sensible people. Judge for yourselves. And this then is the context.

Watch the question. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? What's the answer to the question? It is, yeah. The cup of blessing we bless, it is a participation in the blood of Christ.

The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? You betcha. So this is why the Lutherans look at the Catholics and go, there's bread and wine there, dude. No, there's not. Then we look at the other guys and go, Christ's body and blood are there too.

You're a Roman Catholic. No, we're not. We're just sticking within the bounds of how this works. So the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? And this is going to be an important phrase here as we look at this next question, and that is, what makes a valid sacrament?

Because I've been in churches where, you know, they have the Lord's Supper maybe twice a year, and what they'll do is they'll set up a station with some Ritz crackers and some grape juice, and they'll start playing the sappy music, and they'll say, when you feel the Lord leading you, come on up and have, you know, and partake of the Lord's Supper.

But they don't say any of the words that Jesus says, and of course they tell you, if you have any unconfessed sin in your life, do not come up, which always kind of begs the question. It's like, of course I've got unconfessed sin in my life, because Scripture is clear in the Proverbs and the Psalms that we do not even know the depth and the magnitude of our own sin.

So if I had to somehow recount and, you know, manually repent for every single sin that I commit, I couldn't possibly pull it off. You couldn't pull it off, because I am sinning every nanosecond of every day that I do not trust God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Yes, James. Yeah, I know, it's weird. So it was Aquinas who formalized that. There were twinges of it prior to it when you read the Catholic Fathers, but when you read the early Church Fathers, especially all the way up to Antionicean Fathers, so, you know, through Augustine, they all recognize that Christ's body and blood are present, and they give no explanation other than Christ is the one who makes it the Lord's Supper.

And so the best way to put it is that what Aquinas did is, Aquinas being a scholastic, he took the teachings of Aristotle, Aristotelian philosophy, and applied that type of logic to the question of the Lord's Supper in order to dogmatize the mechanism by which it becomes the Lord's Supper, and in so doing then denied that there is any bread and wine present.

And Rome later adopted that mechanical Aristotelian logic, a dogmatized substantiation. But when you read the writings of the Church Fathers, they sound kind of like as vague and as specific as the Lutherans.

It's the body and blood of Christ given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins. It's truly there, it's truly present, and they don't really give an explanation as to how, and they will talk in terms of bread and wine also being present.

I mean, and that's how this goes. So when we talk about the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? We're going to note then that when we talk about blessing the cup or blessing the elements, there's a wide sense and there's a narrow sense in which that takes place.

But it's Christ who's the one who makes it what it is. And then he asks the question, the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? It is, because there is one bread. We who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

And so you'll note that in verse 17 then, this is the reason why Lutherans do not just throw the table open wide. So if you're a Roman Catholic attending a Lutheran congregation, because there is an overt, by our bodily action, claim to unity when we have the Lord's Supper, then it, you know, whenever I attend a Roman Catholic mass, usually for a funeral or something like that, if they're having the Lord's Supper, I do not participate.

I can't. I don't have that freedom because, you know, Romans anathematized us, and for me to have the Lord's Supper in a me, by my bodily action, saying that we're in unity when we're not. So I can't do that.

So same reason also that when somebody's part of an apostate sect and they come here, you know, we're, you know, things are not going in that direction. You get the idea. So, and that's the idea behind it.

So now comes the question then, how does it become the Lord's Supper? Is there a, quote, mechanism that we point to as far as what makes a valid sacrament? And you're going to note here, when the Lutherans talk about this, we'll talk about it being a valid sacrament versus an invalid.

And where we're going to put our emphasis is on the words of Christ when Christ says, do this. All right? So you'll note that in the first observance of the Lord's Supper, that it took place in an upper room.

There were dining couches. There were only men present. By the way, if we get this wrong, it's hilarious. There isn't a single instance in the New Testament of a woman receiving the Lord's Supper. I'm saying that because you, I'm saying that because when it comes to these things, we make a very careful distinction between what is described and what is prescribed.

And this is an important thing that you have got to do in all of your theology. So for instance, I brought this up before. Y 'all are aware that the Jehovah's Witnesses, those people who annoyingly knock on your door and, you know, try to sell it.

You know, they don't really sell you, but they'll give you the Watchtower Magazine or the Awake. They only, every time I move to a house, they only come once and then they never come back. It's the weirdest phenomenon.

Yeah. But the Jehovah's Witnesses, they do not celebrate birthdays. Did you know that? Okay. You know that. All right. Why? Well, if you ask a Jehovah's Witness why, here's the, here's the reason. In the Bible, there are two instances of birthday celebrations, one by Pharaoh in Genesis, one by Herod in the Gospels.

And guess what happened both times? Somebody got killed. Yep. It was Pharaoh's chief baker. He lost his head. Okay. Or he's, you know, and then, and of course, well, actually it was John the Baptist lost his head, his Pharaoh's chief baker.

He was, he was strung up, right? You know, he was, you know, in fact, the way he died kind of almost hints at crucifixion. It's kind of weird. But so both of them died. Therefore, we know that this is not an accident.

They would say, this is not an accident. Therefore, God is telling us that he does not want to celebrate birthdays. So what you're going to note here is that what they're doing is they're taking something that's described and turning it into a prescription.

Right. Yeah. And Romans four is clear in this regard. Romans four says explicitly where there is no law, there is no transgression. Okay. So is it, is there, is it wrong for you to drink alcohol? No, there is no law against it.

Is it wrong for you to eat kale? Yes. But not biblically. It is wrong, but God will not send you to hell for it. Okay. Yeah. You get the idea. All right. Now, real quick, I see that Carmen Navarro has his hands up.

I'm going to ask to, I'm going to ask to you to unmute yourself and you can ask your question, sir. Let's see here. Did you have a question? There we go. Oh, there we go. Okay. Yeah. I can hear you. Oh, you put it in the chat.

Okay. Give me a second. Okay. Ah, got it. Okay. I'll, I'll, I'll put your hand down. Hang on a second here. I'm going to say I have the power. I can lower your hand. All right. So let me check the chat real quick and, and not get too far ahead here.

Uh-huh. Oh, that's right. Job's kids died when they had the party. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so they, they, they died while they were having parties are bad apparently. Uh, I, but my son Joshua pointed out in the, um, in the chat, he says that, uh, there was another birthday celebration.

The angel celebrated Jesus's birth and nobody died there. So that's a good thing. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you, Carmen. Okay. They, okay. These, okay. So we got, we got that little part here. Um, all right.

I'll come back to these other questions in a minute. So the question that I'm going to, we're going to take a look at now is the question of what is it that makes a valid sacrament? And we focus in on the words of Christ do this.

And the question is do what? All right. What is it that makes a valid sacrament? And so I've put together what I call 14 theses, and I might need to clean these up at some other point because there's been some weird, uh, uh, let's just say weird rebuttals to this that overlook something that's obvious.

But, uh, in the formula of Concord, which is part of the Lutheran confessions, solid declaration chat, uh, seven paragraph 74 says these words, no human words or works create the true presence of Christ's body and blood in the supper, including the merit or the speaking of the minister.

Now, maybe we have to ask the question, what, you know, what, what are these guys getting at? Because in Rome, you ask a Roman Catholic, how does, how does it go from being bread and wine to being the body and blood of Christ?

How does transubstantiation work? What's the mechanism for it? Answer the priest. Well, what about the priest? He has had, he's experienced the sacrament of ordination. And by going through the sacrament of ordination, he, there has been an indelible change in his character where he is now able to do the hocus pocus abracadabra work of changing bread into the body and blood of Christ.

And you sit there and go, what? Okay. Huh? All right. So when we talk about consecration, the, this is where I have to explain this out. It's not me who makes it the Lord's supper. When I went to seminary, we did not have a class on, on here are the proper steps so that you pastor can make it the body and blood of Christ.