The Medicine of Immortality: Part 4, You Are Dying, And Medicine Exits that Can Save You

Okay, so you have probably been wondering how the title of this series, “The Medicine of Immortality,” connects to the content of the first three posts. In this final post of the series, I will make that plain.

But to recap:

1. Due to the metaphysical impoverishment of the Christian imagination in modernity, especially in Protestant spaces, churches have experienced what I have called “sacramental drift.” That is to say, the sacraments no longer point to ontological realities. Rather, they have become moralized “sacraments of ourselves.”

2. While moralization and politicization were intended to make not only the sacraments but the whole of Christian life more relevant, this tendency has exacerbated and facilitated trends toward disenchantment. Moralization and politicization lead to functional atheism as churches talk themselves out of existence.

3. We can fortify our ontological imagination regarding the sacraments and the Christian life through liturgical practices. As with the Catholic Eucharistic Revival, we can bring ontological realities back into view, perhaps for the very first time in some memorialist traditions.

All that brings me to a suggestion about how we might bring ontological realities into view when speaking about the Lord’s Supper.

Again, one of the big issues here concerns the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. In this regard, low-church Protestants can adopt liturgies that bring the real presence into view. Simply saying aloud, together, “The Body of Christ” and “The Blood of Christ” as we handle the elements helps here. Repeatedly saying that “Christ meets us here at his Table” brings his presence into view. Speaking in a particular way about the Table can do important work in pushing back against the dry, disenchanted imagination many modern Christians bring to church. And again, for me this has less to do with theologies of consecration and priestcraft than with recognizing that the gathered Body becomes a particular and specific ontological thin space, a site where Christ has promised to meet his people and act for their good.

Still, I have noticed that this language about the real presence, pneumatically understood, can feel ghostly, insubstantial, and overly spiritualized. This is especially so when contrasted with something like the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, where attention is focused on the physical elements being ingested. How might Protestants bring this ontology of divine action into view?

Here is my suggestion. Start calling the Eucharist medicine.

To be sure, this will sound strange in many low church Protestant spaces. But strange is the point.

Ignatius of Antioch, one of the very earliest church fathers, traditionally dated as martyred during the reign of Trajan (98–117 AD), described the Eucharist in a letter to the Ephesians as “the medicine of immortality” and “the antidote that we should not die but live forever in Jesus Christ.” Ignatius is echoing Jesus' words in John 6: "The one who eats this bread will live forever."

I find several things compelling about describing the Eucharist as medicine for sin, for mortality, and for our souls generally. Most importantly, it is a material rather than a purely spiritual or relational description. When we speak of Christ’s “presence,” most people imagine something invisible and spiritual. Medicine, by contrast, is neither spooky nor spectral. Medicine is a material substance that you ingest for healing and well-being. Describing the Eucharist in this way draws attention to the elements themselves, to what we eat and drink at the Table.

Calling the Eucharist medicine also highlights locality and occasion. You can experience Christ’s presence anytime and anywhere. But if you want Christ’s medicine, you have to go to church. There is nowhere else it is available. 

Finally, describing the Eucharist as medicine infuses the material world with spiritual power and potency. Something more than an affectional encounter with Jesus is taking place. There is an infusion of spiritual power as we partake of the elements. A real potency is at work in the sacrament, effective in liberating us from the powers of sin and death.

Now, of course, results will vary. Still, I strongly suspect that if a church were to regularly and liturgically describe the Eucharist as medicine--“The Body of Christ. The Blood of Christ. The medicine of immortality”--people’s perceptions of the Supper would be shaped and formed. Most importantly for my purposes, they would be formed toward a more robust ontological understanding of the sacrament.

More than this, the spiritual uniqueness of the Eucharist would come into view. If you need medicine, there is only one place to get it. In a spiritual-but-not-religious world, more talk of “presence” is not local or material enough. Medicine is. And if you want this medicine, you have to go where it is dispensed. You have to be physically present.

In this way, the Eucharist becomes not only ontologically freighted but indispensable, a matter of life and death. And I don’t think we need a theology of consecration to accomplish this. All we need to recognize is that the Body gathered around Christ’s Table is a site of divine action and a means of grace. There is a power here that can be found nowhere else, and that power is medicinal.

You are dying, and medicine exists that can save you.

Come to the Table.