Many of you grew up in churches where Communion was observed with a small cup of juice, a cracker, and a few quiet minutes of personal reflection. The pastor may have said the words of institution from 1 Corinthians 11, and then everyone bowed their heads to remember what Jesus did on the cross. That experience is meaningful. It is reverent. And for the Church of the Nazarene, it is incomplete.
The Lord’s Supper, in the Wesleyan-holiness tradition, is not a ritual of remembrance. It is a sacrament, which means it is a means of grace, an active channel through which the risen Christ meets his people at the table. The difference between a memorial and a sacrament is not a small theological detail. It shapes everything about how you will administer Communion, how you will prepare your congregation to receive it, and what you expect to happen when you do.
The classic definition of a sacrament, used consistently across centuries of Christian theology and affirmed in the Wesleyan tradition, is this: an outward sign of an inward grace, and a means by which we receive the same.
In the Lord’s Supper, the outward signs are bread and the cup. These are not arbitrary objects. Bread is the most basic of human foods, the thing people worked and waited for, the thing Jesus taught his followers to pray for daily. The cup carries the weight of covenant throughout Scripture, from the Passover cup to the cup Jesus took in Gethsemane. When Jesus placed these elements at the center of his final meal with his disciples, he was connecting them to the whole story of God with his people.
But as with baptism, the Nazarene understanding does not stop at a sign. The bread and cup are not just pictures of something that happened two thousand years ago. They are the vehicle through which the living Christ is present and active at his table today.
“We believe that the Communion Supper instituted by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is a sacrament, proclaiming His life, sufferings, sacrificial death, resurrection, and the hope of His coming again. The Lord’s Supper is a means of grace in which Christ is present by the Spirit. All are invited to participate by faith in Christ and be renewed in life, salvation, and in unity as the Church.” — Church of the Nazarene Manual, Article 13
Notice what the article says: Christ is present by the Spirit. Not that Christ is symbolically represented. Not that Christ is remembered. Christ is present. The risen Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is at work in the Lord’s Supper. That is a claim about reality, not sentiment.
Just as with baptism, the most important reorientation for a pastor coming from a symbolic tradition is this: the Lord’s Supper is not primarily about what you are doing. It is about what God is doing.
In a purely memorial model, the person taking Communion is the active one. They are remembering, reflecting, pledging their commitment, participating in a corporate moment of shared recollection. In a means-of-grace model, God is the primary actor. The risen Christ is present at his table through the Spirit. The person receiving the bread and cup is not primarily performing an act of memory. They are receiving something. Grace is flowing.
First, God is proclaiming the whole story of Christ. The article says the Supper proclaims His life, sufferings, sacrificial death, resurrection, and the hope of His coming again. Most memorial approaches to Communion emphasize only the death of Christ. The Nazarene understanding is richer: the Lord’s Supper holds together the entire arc of Christ’s work, from incarnation to crucifixion to resurrection to the coming kingdom.
Second, God is offering renewal. Participants are renewed in life, salvation, and in unity as the Church. This is ongoing grace, not a one-time transaction. The Lord’s Supper is for the whole community of faith, regularly, because the grace it conveys is the grace we need continuously.
Third, God is forming the church as a body. The renewal happens not only to individuals but to the church as a corporate reality. The table is the place where the scattered and diverse people of God become visibly one body, gathering around the same Lord.
1 Corinthians 10:16–17 “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.”
Paul does not say the cup represents a participation in the blood of Christ. He says it is a participation. The Greek word is koinonia, which means fellowship, sharing, communion. What happens at the Lord’s Supper is a communion with Christ and with one another, not a symbolic enactment of a communion that happens elsewhere.
Think about the last time you received Communion. Were you remembering something that is past, or were you receiving something from someone who is present? How might your experience of the sacrament change if you came to the table expecting to meet the risen Christ?
The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that in the Mass, the bread and wine become the physical body and blood of Christ. The Church of the Nazarene does not hold this view. The elements remain bread and cup. The real presence of Christ at the table is not located in a change in the elements but in the active, personal presence of the risen Christ through the Spirit.
At the other end of the spectrum, the purely symbolic or memorial view, associated primarily with Ulrich Zwingli in the Reformation era, teaches that the Lord’s Supper is a human act of remembrance with no intrinsic connection to God’s active grace. This view, though widespread in American evangelical culture, represents a significant departure from the Christian tradition, including Wesley’s. Wesley believed God was present and active in the Lord’s Supper and received Communion frequently, sometimes daily, not as an act of religious routine but because he expected to meet Christ there.
The Church of the Nazarene holds a position between these extremes: Christ is present by the Spirit in the Lord’s Supper, the elements remain bread and cup, grace is truly conveyed, and that grace must be received by faith. The table is a place of encounter, not a mechanism, and not just a monument.
The biblical witness to the Lord’s Supper is deeper than the two passages most quoted at Communion.
Luke 22:19–20 “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’”
The Greek word translated as “remembrance” is anamnesis, and it carries a meaning that does not translate well into English. Anamnesis is not simply recalling a past event. In Jewish liturgical use, it meant making the past event present and active in the current moment. The remembrance Jesus calls for is the kind that makes him present, not the kind that recalls he was once there.
Luke 24:30–31 “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.”
Two disciples walk with the risen Christ for hours without recognizing him. They recognize him only in the breaking of the bread. The risen Christ is known at the table in a way he is not otherwise recognized. This is a window into what the Lord’s Supper is: the place where the risen Christ becomes recognizable to his people.
1 Corinthians 11:27–29 “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.”
Paul’s warning makes no sense in a memorial view. If the Supper were only a human act of remembrance, an unworthy attitude would be disrespectful but would not carry consequences of this magnitude. The seriousness of this warning presupposes that something real is happening at the table and that how a person receives it matters.
The Church of the Nazarene practices open Communion. The table is not restricted to members of our denomination or to people who have completed a particular class or met a credentialing requirement. Article 13 says all are invited to participate by faith in Christ.
This practice is not about being welcoming. It is a theological statement rooted in our understanding of prevenient grace. We believe God is already at work in every person before they fully understand what they believe. An invitation to the table that excludes seekers would contradict our convictions about how God works.
How you frame the invitation to the table teaches your congregation something about who God is. An open table communicates that Christ is the host, not the church, and that Christ invites all who come seeking him.
Take time to write out the words of invitation you will use when you administer the Lord’s Supper. Read them aloud. Ask yourself: do these words communicate that something real is about to happen, that Christ is genuinely present, that grace is being offered? The words of invitation are themselves a form of teaching.
For the Church of the Nazarene, the Lord’s Supper is connected to the doctrine of holiness. The entirely sanctified person continues to need grace, continues to grow, and continues to depend on God. The Lord’s Supper is one of the primary means through which that ongoing grace is received.
Wesley believed frequent Communion was not superstitious or mechanical but a direct response to Christ’s command and a primary channel of the Spirit’s sanctifying work. For Wesley, staying away from the Lord’s Supper was not an act of humility. It was refusing the grace God had provided.
Hebrews 10:24–25 “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
We do not become holy in isolation. We become holy in community, at the table, in the shared breaking of bread that declares we belong to one another because we belong to Christ.
Article 13 says the Lord’s Supper proclaims the hope of His coming again. Every Communion service looks back to what Christ did on the cross, receives present grace, and looks forward to the feast that Christ promised. The Manual’s communion ritual captures this: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. The table is a foretaste of the wedding supper of the Lamb, a moment when the future breaks into the present.
Before you lead Communion for the first time, write out a brief explanation you will give to the congregation before the elements are distributed. Practice saying it. Make sure it reflects the Nazarene understanding: that this is a sacrament, that Christ is present by the Spirit, that grace is being offered, and that all who come in faith are welcome at Christ’s table. The way you lead this moment teaches your congregation what they believe about God.
The Church of the Nazarene stands in a rich sacramental tradition. The Lord’s Supper is not a ceremony you perform. It is a divine act you are privileged to administer. Christ is the host of this table, not you. The grace offered here is not yours to control or withhold. Your role is to set the table faithfully, invite people, and trust that the risen Christ will show up, because he has promised to.
The people in your congregation may have spent years at a table where they only remembered something that happened long ago. You can introduce them to a table where they can meet someone who is present. That is a beautiful responsibility.
Lead the Lord’s Supper as though something is about to happen. Because it is.