What are we doing here? Or, more importantly, what is being done to us here?
The Church has historically been divided as to the meaning and import of this Supper. Some believe that no miracle occurs here, others believe that a miracle happens, but it is the wrong category of miracle. A third group believes that this is a miraculous meal—but know that it is a covenantal miracle, not a metaphysical one.
Many of our brothers in the evangelical world believe that this Supper is nothing but a divinely appointed reminder. The blessing comes to you because you think certain thoughts in your head, and this meal is designed to remind you to think those thoughts. Thus, if something else reminded you of them during the course of the week, at some other place and time, you would be just as blessed. This is the mere memorialist view.
In the second view, the remarkable thing happens to the bread and wine. When the words of institution are spoken, Christ is manifested locally somehow in the bread and wine. This, of course, necessitates certain theories about the relationship of all the elements, turns the Table into an Altar, and so forth. The fundamental mistake is that it moves the sacrament away from the congregation and on to the Table. The first error moved the sacrament away from the congregation and into individual brains.
We believe that Christ is manifested in our presence in our action of eating and drinking in faith. If asked if we believe in the real presence of Christ, we should say certainly—we don’t believe in His real absence. Christ is in the participles—eating and drinking, not in the inert and stationary objects of bread and wine.
How can an action like eating and drinking knit us together with the living Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father? This is the miracle—this is the work of the Holy Spirit, who takes us up into the heavenly places in this worship service, and there enables us by faith to partake of Christ.