Chapter Four: Living a Sacramental Life

”For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” - C.S. Lewis

“We live from Eucharist to Eucharist, from Sunday to Sunday. We are either in a state of thankfulness or in a state of preparation. This is what it means to live between Easter and the Second Coming.” - Astor Yelangueuzian

WE ALL KNOW that most, if not all, Churches accept two Sacraments, namely: Baptism and the Lords Supper. Sacraments are physical acts that represent spiritual realities. The Lord sets apart water during a baptism for a special holy use. And the Lord sets apart bread and wine for a hallowed use when remembering His death and resurrection. Universally all Christian denominations would agree with these two actions in their practices and traditions as a group.

But what is a sacramental life? It is a life that allows the world around us to lead us into the Divine realities of God. It is choosing to spiritualize the mundane aspects of our lives in the same way that the Early Church did to reflect and glorify Christ and aid in our sanctification into His image. All of this life is for Christ. Marriage is really a shadow of the spiritual reality of Christ and the Church.

To live a sacramental life we should constantly say to ourselves, whether we eat or drink, we should do all things for the glory of God. The early Church sought to bring great glory to Christ by having the most insignificant things in life represent Him.

The Church Calendar

One step the early Church believers took was to turn the calendar into a remembrance of God and Christ’s incarnation. Each Sunday “we all hold our common assembly” for it was the day Christ rose from the grave. Easter Sunday became the pinnacle and most important Sunday of the year. Easter (pascha) is the day of the new beginning of the entire cosmos, the day of resurrection. The very resurrection of Christ is the pivotal day in all human history. Even in modern calendars, we see time split in half with B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini - In the year of the Lord). We cannot emphasize enough the importance of the death and resurrection of the Son of God in time and eternity.

Each moment in time is a way we can touch eternity. The early Church Fathers recognized this and desired to sanctify as much of this daily life as possible to bring our hearts and minds heavenward, not only thinking about eternity but being affected by it.

The history of Jewish worship is a history of festivals, holy days, and liturgical actions. It was normative for the early disciples to think this way; therefore, having yearly remembrances of key events for the Church was simply how they thought and functioned. As already alluded to, Easter was the main significant event. All other remembrances brought the Church back to this high holy day. This one event is anticipated or remembered throughout the year. And therefore, all the years after the original resurrection of Christ are also years to look back on the core element of our faith.

St. Thomas Churches seek to hold only the earliest dates in the calendar and not new invented dates that came later in Church history (Lent, All Saints Day, Certain Feast days). Simply keeping to the dates in the Calendar that are more centred on Jesus which was the faith and desire of the earliest believers.

The Early Church Fathers were intensely Christ-centered and Christ-focused. They aimed to point all events towards Him; the Lord’s Day hallowed the pagan Sunday. The hours of prayer hallowed the morning, noon and evening of each day to set our minds on Christ. Jesus became the focus of the seasons. His incarnation is celebrated in the winter, and His resurrection is in the spring. Each rising and setting of the sun spoke to some early believers of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The remembrance of wine and bread was a constant focal point of His great suffering for humanity. Many Old Testament types and stories became stories of the glorious Gospel of Christ.

Keeping Sacred Time

The Liturgical Year of the Church is not a modern, made-up idea but goes right back to the very beginnings of the Church. Polycarp and many second century bishops were carrying on the traditions from the Apostles: “Polycarp also was not only instructed by Apostles and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by Apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna.” The original Jewish feasts and holy days are the roots of this tradition. The Church year is centered around the redemption actions of Jesus Christ on the earth. It celebrates and re-lives His story of healing mankind from sin and death. The two largest parts of this story that everything revolves around are the Incarnation and the Resurrection. The Incarnation is celebrated starting with Advent, and the Resurrection is celebrated from Easter to Pentecost.

Each Sunday (Lord’s Day) Christians gather for the “weekly remembrance of the glorious resurrection.” This is the Holy Eucharist also called the Great Thanksgiving. “Each Sunday testifies to the resurrection. Every Sunday is a weekly little Easter.” The center point and climax of the Church year is Easter, when Jesus’ timeless sacrifice is remembered and re-enacted.

The Church year begins with Advent, being a reminder of the waiting period for His second coming, but primarily to celebrate Jesus Christ’s Incarnation, being born into the earth. So the normal calendar begins on January 1, but the Church year starts in November!

The next part of the Church year is Christmastide, which begins with the nativity of Jesus Christ (December 25) and goes on twelve days celebrating the Incarnation.

Epiphany is the next season of the Church year that begins with the Magi visiting the Christ Child. This season primarily speaks of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.

Now we come to the Mount Everest of the Christian year! Easter. It is called Holy Week, and certain events are recognized. On Palm Sunday, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is re-enacted. Good Friday is a very solemn day when the death of Christ is recognized. On Holy Saturday, there is no celebration of the Eucharist, known as a day of fasting. Lastly, the Easter Vigil happens when congregants come very early in the morning to light the paschal candle, symbolizing Christ’s resurrection from the dead. This is a very joyful service, and historically, this has been the main day when people are water baptized. Easter Sunday is the day of the new beginning of the entire cosmos, the day of resurrection. Christ’s Resurrection marks the beginning of the New Creation.

The Pentecost season happens afterwards, representing the day that the Church was born. It is the longest season in the Church calendar and lasts till Advent begins.

The Early Church Fathers were intensely Christ-centered and Christ-focused. They aimed to point all events in our life back to Christ Himself. Whether it was times of day or seasons of the year, it all had significance tracing back to the Holy Gospel.

Celebrating the Church Year is yet another way to live a sacramental life in order to allow God’s very creation, times, and seasons to testify of Him; therefore, we bring glory to God.

The Sign of the Cross

The Scriptures record was used to carry on many traditions in the Church from Apostolic times. But there have been some godly traditions that started in the first 200 years of the Church that were done for reasons of truth and theology. These physical actions were things that reminded believers of great spiritual truth and belief. These practices do not nullify the word of God but simply act as sacramental helps. One of these practices is the Sign of the Cross. The cross of Jesus Christ is where our Lord wrought the victory over the power of sin, the devil and the demons.

The cross is the emblem not only of suffering but of victory. The cross has been an early Church symbol that has lasted to this day, resulting in it being the main symbol used in most evangelical churches and all other Christian groups. Most prominently, a cross is on or behind a preaching pulpit, and especially crosses on top of Church buildings have been practiced worldwide. Making the sign of the cross has endured to this day in various Christian groups. In the 2nd century, Tertullian said, “In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in the putting on of our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupieth us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross.”

Paul when he said, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus” is the living emblem of one who embraced the taking “up his cross daily and follow Me”, he might have not worn a cross physically but he bore one in his heart through suffering. When we bear the cross today, are we also agreeing that we will follow Jesus in this narrow way of suffering.

In around 300 A.D., St. Cyril of Jerusalem also mentions this practice. Not all reformers adopted this practice, though some did (Anglicans, Lutherans, etc.), though it dates to ante-Nicene Christianity. St. Basil also said that the Apostles “taught us to mark with the sign of the cross [during water baptism] those who put their hope in the Lord.”

The sign of the cross is a prayer and declaration that we make when we trace the cross on our upper bodies. When we make the sign of the cross, we trace with our right hand a path reminiscent of the cross upon which Jesus died. Thus, when completed, the motion of our hand makes a cross.

Martin Luther taught all his followers to make the sign of the cross as a sacramental symbol and reminder of the Lord’s possession of His people in the Gospel. In his Catechism, he exhorts his followers: “In the morning, when you rise, you shall make the sign of the holy cross, and you shall say: ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ Then, kneeling or standing, you shall say the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. In the evening, when you go to bed, you shall make the sign of the holy cross, and you shall say: ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ Then, kneeling or standing, you shall say the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.”

In another sermon Luther says: “Therefore Christ alone is the rock. Where any other foundation is laid, then make the sign of the cross over yourself.”

Hippolytus of Rome in A.D. 215 wrote: “If you are tempted, hasten to sign yourself on the forehead against the devil, provided you make it with faith.” Therefore, the sign of the cross was also seen as a way to protect yourself spiritually, to put on the armor of God.

The Cross: A Sacramental Symbol

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, also encouraged this practice on different occasions, one being when Elders are called to lay hands on someone, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.

In various Presbyterian Churches, such as the Church of Scotland, this practice of the sign of the cross is used during communion and also in benediction when the minister concludes the service using the trinitarian blessing. Anglicans practice the sign of the cross as a blessing over people and as part of the liturgy service, culminating in making the sign of the cross over Holy Communion. Some other smaller current evangelical movements also carry on this practice and tradition.

The rise of the practice was mostly due to the stand of the Church on the doctrine of the Trinity against many heresies that were denying that God came in the flesh. The practice of the sign of the cross was a way to solidify this theology in the minds of believers. Many also saw it as a way of proclaiming the victory of the cross over the enemy and all principalities. When one does the sign of the cross over themselves, they are not only proclaiming the truth of whom God is (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) but also proclaiming their body as the possession of the Lord. This practice demonstrates the importance to the early Church of promoting the truth of Jesus’ dual nature as fully God and fully man, as well as the doctrine of the Trinity.

Practicing the sign of the Cross is a wonderful sacramental action that can allow us to keep more in union with God, remind ourselves the importance of the Lord’s death, and use it as a form of protection in spiritual warfare, declaring our body and spirit to be owned by Christ. This practice is not required by laity (optional) but will be used by clergy in some liturgical functions.

Apostolic Practice of Hours Of Prayer

“One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon.” Would it be strange to know that the early Apostles prayed at specific hours of the day? For many believers in Jesus Christ, we are afforded the liberty to pray at any time, which, of course, is right, as the Apostles did have that same liberty. Yet there was a very old practice in the people of God’s history that carried over into the Church.

Daniel practiced the three specific times of prayer daily. In the Psalms, there are multiple references to the hours of prayer. It is also interesting to note that the Apostles prayed the Psalms, as did Jesus Christ when he was dying on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

There were three distinct times: 9 a.m. (the 3rd hour), 12 noon (the 6th hour), and 3 p.m. (the ninth hour). We read in the above passage that the Apostles went “at three” which is right but in Jewish times and in Greek this would have meant “the ninth hour.” Peter the Apostle practiced the hours of prayer as it says: “Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.” The early Church carried on this tradition of praying the Psalms and also praying at the hours of prayer.

Early Church Father Tertullian says, “Touching the time, however, the extrinsic observance of certain hours will not be unprofitable—those common hours, I mean, which mark the intervals of the day—the third, the sixth, the ninth—which we may find in the Scriptures to have been more solemn than the rest.”

Books on prayer in our modern-day Church are too numerous to count. Advice and words are multiplied to encourage brothers and sisters in the Lord to commit to prayer. It has been no hidden secret that the prayer life of pastors and spiritual leaders in evangelical circles has waned greatly in our modern day. At times formal prayer has been transformed into a freer model, but this has not helped prayer to flourish in the Church. To have set times to set apart one’s day to fix the gaze back on the Lord is not just helpful but essential to spiritual formation.

Early believers recited the Lord’s Prayer three times a day in-line with the hours of prayer. In a very early manuscript called the Didache it says towards the Lord’s Prayer: “Thrice in the day thus pray.” This prayer “was seen by the early Church as one of its holy treasures.” It is said in unison during a Eucharist gathering and is the first words that a baptized Christian would say, “Our Father.”

There is a reason why Scripture speaks of these things, and the Lord knows the benefit of discipline to help us grow in godliness. A.W. Tozer, speaking of this need to recover a more disciplined prayer life, says: “Every Christian should have a stated time each day which he can give to the holy office of prayer.” Each day of our short lives is the Lord’s. Before each meal, we give thanks to the Lord. Before we sleep, we thank the Lord for the day. Should we also not thank the Lord throughout the day? This sacramental sanctifying of specific hours of the day to cast our minds back upon the Lord has been one of the key sacramental practices of the historic Church.

Christs Death and the Hours of Prayer

“It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.” The death of Jesus Christ is the most important day in the world and humanity’s history. We recognize this day in our modern calendar by stating events are after the death of Christ or before the death of Christ. For eternity, this is a timeless event where God dwells. It was an eternal sacrifice that was given once and for all in time. We are trapped in time as mortal human beings. Our days are few.

The significance of the death of Jesus Christ has been foreshadowed in the history of God’s dealings with men. It is also the focal point of Christian worship in Holy Communion, Baptism of Water speaks of identifying with his death. The earliest Apostles’ Creed of the Church speaks of Christ’s death. The early Church chose the cross as one of the main symbols to represent their belief. In heaven, we will be worshipping the Lord at the throne of God and thanking him for His death on the cross. Sometimes we think little and do not meditate enough on the very death of our Lord, which brought us to God and changed everything. In the Lord’s Supper, we “proclaim the Lord’s death.” It was in the death of Christ that the mystery of redemption was actuated. This focus on the death of Christ does not minimize the importance of the resurrection.

What is fascinating is the hours of prayer that Early believers practiced followed the actual events of the death of Christ. He was crucified in the third hour. Darkness covered the land at the sixth hour At the ninth hour Jesus cried out and “breathed his last.” Some early believers saw great significance in this and were reminded of the Lord’s death and suffering through the hours of prayer. It is for us as believers to meditate upon and dwell on the death of Christ which gives us eternal life.

There is an eternal richness to everything the son of God did, especially His death on the cross. In the Apostolic Tradition, Hippolytus says, “For at that hour Christ was displayed nailed to the tree. Pray likewise at the time of the sixth hour. For as Christ was fixed on the wood of the cross that day was divided, and a great darkness descended. Therefore you should pray a powerful prayer at that hour. And they should pray at the ninth hour also a great prayer and give great praise. For at that hour Christ, pierced in the side, poured forth water and blood and lit up the rest of that day and brought it so to the evening.”

Hippolytus also gives us these words in the Apostolic Tradition: “He who prays in the Church [in the morning hours] will be able to pass by the wickedness of the day. If you are faithful to act thus [praying the hours], you shall not undergo temptation, nor will you perish, for you shall have Christ always in mind.” Identifying sacramentally with our Lord in this way is one way we can cease from sin and set ourselves apart as holy to the Lord.

What a sobering thought that we should, as God’s creation, still pray during the very time when the Lord was wounded for our transgressions. In eternity we will be praising and glorifying the Lord, honouring Him forever for the great price He paid. May we start to do this now in our few days here on Earth.

Baptism, The Entry Way

One of the main Biblical sacraments is Water Baptism, which is the entry into the Church. You see, in Church architecture, there is a water font, usually placed right in the entryway of the Church building. This is done on purpose to signify its critical role as part of the salvation process of the individual, the first obedience in the Gospel.

For my journey, when I started to realize the importance and value of Baptism, I started to ask many question. The burning question before me was: What really happens upon baptism? What does it truly signify? For some Churches, it was just a rite of membership; for others, it was just a way to testify to everyone their experience; even for others, it was treated as an evangelism opportunity only. However, as I studied the Early Church Fathers and re-read the Holy Scriptures, I realized that Water Baptism was part of the actual salvation experience for these Book of Acts Christians. At the very least water Baptism signifies a ratification and sealing of the surrender of one’s heart to Jesus Christ and is not something we can bypass, it is “part” of the salvation experience just like the final resurrection will culminate our salvation from sin and death through Christ.

Baptism was not only a symbol; it was clear from the Bible that the Holy Spirit was received upon the Water Baptism of individuals: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

“And this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

“And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on His Name.’”

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

“Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.’”

The early Church Fathers were conclusive on this also:

“Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life.”

“Without baptism, salvation is attainable by none”

“It is not possible to receive forgiveness of sins without baptism.”

“If any man does not receive baptism, he does not have salvation. The only exception is the martyrs, who even without water will receive the kingdom.”

“[According to] Apostolic tradition . . . the churches of Christ hold inherently that without baptism and participation at the table of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and life eternal. This is the witness of Scripture too.”

For myself, one of the most convincing things was reading the Catechetical Lecture on Baptism and Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. These early Church documents explain how Water Baptism was done. And the amazing fact is that some historic Churches, 1000+ years later, are still doing almost the exact same ritual and wording in some cases!

St. Thomas Church takes a position of belief in infant baptism like many other protestant Churches but also will baptize upon confession for those who have a conscience towards that position. We would rather be united in Christ than divide over this issue. All water baptism for older children or adults would be, where possible, full immersion. For infants water baptism would be administered by sprinkling or pouring. We seek not to be divisive on this issue but graceful.

Here is an excerpt from St. Cyril of Jerusalem on Baptism:

“After these things, ye were led to the holy pool of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried from the Cross to the Sepulchre which is before our eyes. And each of you was asked, whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and ye made that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and ascended again; here also hinting by a symbol at the three days burial of Christ.”

Sacramental Actions

In this chapter, we have learned about many major sacramental actions the Church believes and practices: Holy Baptism, Hours of Prayer, Sign of the Cross, and the Church Calendar. These actions we take in our lives speak of eternal events and have eternal ramifications. Mixed with faith, these practices can bolster our faith and further us spiritually. We have to remember our lives are not our own, daily we should remind ourselves of this, through these sacramental actions.

The Scriptures are replete with examples of sacramental events. One does not have to read far into the Bible to see the significance of blood sacrifice, animal skin coverings, the staff of Moses, the Tabernacle, Feasts, etc.

When we start to live this life, realizing everything physical has spiritual results, this will begin the process of sanctifying our daily lives and make the reality of the incarnation of God in the flesh seem much more important.

The greatest sacrament given we have not focused on yet, is Holy Communion, also known as Holy Eucharist (The Great Thanksgiving). This Bread and Wine that our Lord gave to His disciples to remember Him and partake in union with Him is a practice kept by virtually all expressions of the Church to this day. You might be surprised at the significance of this sacramental action as you explore it in the next chapter.