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What is The Lord's Supper?

On the last night Jesus spent with His disciples before His death and resurrection, He shared bread and wine with them as part of the Passover meal (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). This sharing of the bread and wine is known as Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper.

When Jesus shared the bread and wine with His disciples, the bread symbolized His body and the wine symbolized His blood (Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:17-20). The disciples understood this to mean that He was giving up His life (body and blood) for their benefit. The earliest records of the Church show that His followers regularly shared bread and wine together, reminding themselves that Jesus had died for them (1 Corinthians 10:14-16) and will come again.

When Nazarene churches offer the Lord's Supper today, all believers are invited to participate regardless of membership in the church. The Lord's Supper is not appropriate for those who have not yet accepted the new life God offers (I Corinthians 11:28-29).

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.     1 Corinthians 11:23-26

The Lord’s Supper is a physical, ritual action, mandated by Jesus, through which God acts to nourish, sustain, comfort, challenge, teach, and assure us. A richly symbolic act, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper nourishes our faith and stirs our imaginations to perceive the work of God and the contours of the gospel more clearly.  As the New Testament unfolds the meaning of the feast, it describes the Lord’s Supper as a single celebration that conveys several layers of meaning.

  • First, the Lord’s Supper is a celebration of memory and hope. We remember all that God has done for us, especially in Christ. The Lord’s Supper is a thankful remembrance of the entire life and ministry of Christ: his participation in the creation of the world; his birth at Bethlehem; his teaching and miracles; his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension; his sending of the Spirit; and his second coming and final reign. Significantly we remember not only the actual events (past and future), but especially how those events give us an identity, how they transform us and all creation.
  • The Lord’s Supper is also a celebration and proclamation of Jesus’ real, spiritual presence with us, of the forgiveness offered to us through Christ’s work on the cross, and of the ongoing spiritual nourishment
    he provides us.
  • It is also a celebration of the unity of Christ’s body, the church, as well as a meal of hope, of anticipating the heavenly feast of Christ’s coming kingdom. The Lord’s Supper is linked to nearly every aspect of the gospel!

(from The Worship Sourcebook)

What is Baptism?

Baptism has been a Christian symbol since the time of Jesus (Matthew 3:1-6). It involves applying water to Christians to symbolize their death to the old way of life (Romans 6:3-4) and their new life God provides (Galatians 3:26-27). Baptism, a sacramental "means of grace," seals one's intention to follow God (Acts 2:37-41, 8:35-39, 10:44-48). The Bible never defines how much water was applied or how. Therefore, the Church of the Nazarene considers immersion, sprinkling, and pouring all to be acceptable methods of baptism.

Nazarenes also understand baptism to be a symbol of the new relationship God establishes with His people. Because of this, some Nazarenes choose to have their young children baptized as a symbol of their intention to raise their children in God's Church and their hope to see that their children choose God's ways when they are older.

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Baptism is a physical, ritual action, mandated by Jesus, through which God acts to nourish, sustain, comfort, challenge, teach, and assure us. A richly symbolic action, the celebration of baptism stirs our imaginations to perceive the work of God and the contours of the gospel more clearly.  As the New Testament unfolds the meaning of baptism, it teaches us that baptism is a single celebration that conveys several layers of meaning. It is at once a sign of the washing away of sin, a sign of our union with Jesus’ death and resurrection, a sign of the promise of new birth in Christ, a sign of incorporation in the church, a sign of the promise of the Holy Spirit, and a sign of the covenant and kingdom of God. The celebration of baptism can highlight each of these aspects of the gospel.

(from The Worship Sourcebook)