Humans are not angelic beings. We belong to a special kind
of creation made out of matter and spirit. A human cannot be considered such in
a disembodied state or as unanimated matter, and that is why we await the
resurrection of the dead at the Final Judgement, where reward and penance will
be given to humans in the same condition, they lived in.
As a unity of matter and spirit, humans can be affected
in different ways through physical and spiritual stimulus. Whatever stimulates
the spirit will have material consequences, and vice versa. That is why the
people of God have always practiced fasting and ascetism, to submit the flesh
and the spirit to the Will of God (Matthew 3:4; Luke 5:35).
Knowing this, as our Creator, Lord Jesus established
since the beginning of mankind, different physical acts that reflected
spiritual realities and our covenants with God, to the benefit of our beings as
a whole.
As soon as Adam and Eve fell, God established animal
sacrifice as atonement for sins (Genesis 4:4); He forbade humanity to consume animal
flesh with its blood in recognition of God’s sovereignty over all living beings
(Genesis 9:4); and He ordered circumcision as a sign of the Abrahamic covenant
(Genesis 17:10).
Certainly, all these things could have been given in
faith and theory. Really God does not need animal blood to forgive (Hebrews
10:4); or a faithful man to stop from consuming his hunt with its blood to acknowledge
God’s ownership of the life he has taken as food; and neither needs the cut off
skin to honour a covenant based primarily on Faith (Romans 4:10-12); but God
used these physical means to make us understand the depth of the spiritual
realities they represented, and through our faithful obedience, to channel
grace over us.
In the same way, Lord Jesus established Baptism as the
doorway to a new life as a Child of God; and the Last Supper as a memorial of
his Atoning Sacrifice, to be partaken with faith and devotion, for the
blessings of our whole beings, spiritual and physical.
Certainly salvation can be achieved without the water of
baptism, the same way as a person could be counted as ‘Just” without
circumcision (Romans 2:27;1Corinthians 7:19; Philippians 3:3; Colossians 2:11);
but that is the way God wanted us to seal our commitment to Him.
In the same way, Lord Jesus established the Eucharist, as
an ongoing sacrament based on the giving of his life on the Cross, his flesh
and blood, to physically experienced the spiritual reality of being part of Him
in the flesh as much as in the spirit. This sacrament that embodies the apex of
the salvific act is repeatable for this reason, to sanctify us every time we
partake from it, channelling sanctifying grace and forgiveness of sins, and to
help us to continue our spiritual communion with Christ until we die or He
comes back again in Glory.
Sacraments are much more than just a symbol or a memorial.
They were given to us for a reason, and they are unnegotiable; they must be
celebrated as commanded by our Lord. They are the physical connections our
invisible God, left for us to remember his incarnation and historical reality, and
the salvation of ourselves.
Omar Flores.
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