Rituals

Some Evangelicals fail to see The Church's rituals as vital to the life of the Church because they have convinced themselves (or have been convinced by their pastors) that rituals, while vital to the 'Old Testament System', have been done away with by Christ under the 'New Testament System'. Thus they see any type of 'ritual' by the Church to be a reversion back to the "old" ways.

To 'modern' people (like us) rituals that involve a sacrifice and blood seem like some sort of throw-back to less civilized times. After all, didn't Jesus do away with the need for bloody sacrifice and performing of rituals? ..... An honest look at the scriptures must conclude that the answer to this is NO! We still offer to God a bloody sacrifice for the remission of our sins and through the ritual of the Lord's Supper remind YHWH and ourselves of the "blood of the New Covenant which is poured out for many" (Mark 14:24).

What we too often fail to realize is that Jesus didn't do away with sacrifice or ritual. What He did was take sacrifice and ritual up into Himself and transform them ............. make them "new". I guess you could say that under the New Covenant, sacrifice and ritual have been 'born again'.

Our rituals have been transformed from rituals of exclusion to rituals of inclusion. They have been instituted to teach us that "the Gospel" is not about you or me individually, but about the "New community" that has been created in Christ. This is what the common bath "One Baptism" and the common meal "One Cup and One Loaf" are all about. They teach us that we must die to self. They teach us that we must become like Jesus.

Jesus' ushering in the New Covenant did not mark a movement from a time of ritual to a time of non-ritual. It marked a time of change in the rituals we have been commanded to perform as God's people.

The "Modern" Church and the Sacraments

Most modern Churches in Protestantism have relegated the Sacraments (Ordinances for most) to what can best be described as appendixes to "real ministry". In today's Church it isn't unusual to see pastors delay Baptism for new converts for months and sometimes years. In today's Church it isn't considered abnormal to take the bread and wine(or Welch's) of The Supper once per year. Or, if you're lucky, once per quarter. ............. but Why?

I'm convinced that the answer is to be found in the 'culture of individualism' which has infiltrated the Church. I think this is most clear with regard to The Lord's Supper, but is also true for Baptism. In both, it is a case of a rejection of 'ritual'. And this rejection of ritual is rooted in favoring individualism over community. There are certainly other factors involved, like rationalism and the Protestant tendency to idolize the intellect, but individualism is at the root. 

The ritual of Baptism is about inclusion into the community (body) of Christ and the ritual of the Lord's Supper is all about the sustaining of that community. The Sacraments communicate to us and to the world (at least in part) that in Christ we have forsaken our individualism and self-centeredness for community. This community is the "new man" or the "new creation" that Christ has brought about by His life, death and resurrection. 

To reject the Sacraments or treat them as unimportant appendixes to the life of the Church is to embrace modern culture's disdain for ritual. Modern culture rejects ritual because it is seen as an infringement on 'individual rights'. 

Is it any wonder that the "modern" Church has all but rejected our 'rituals'?

Wade B.