plus the Greek word there that we translate into remember, doesn't mean only remember. it means to make present a past reality and participate in it. so what do we participate in? the real broken Body and spilled Blood of Christ.
anybody remember that word? I can't off the top of my head.
The below quote from the
Orthodox Church in America explains how the Orthodox Church "remembers" Christ during the Liturgy:
Remembering Christ, and offering all things to God in and through him, the Church is filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit. At the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Spirit comes "upon us and upon the gifts here offered." Everything is filled with the Kingdom of God. In God's Kingdom nothing is forgotten. All is remembered, and is thereby made alive. Thus, at this moment in the Divine Liturgy the faithful, remembering Christ, remember all men and all things in him, especially Christ's mother, the Holy Theotokos, and all of the saints
It is necessary to remember once again that remembrance in the Orthodox Church, and particularly the remembrance of God and by God, has a very special meaning. According to the Orthodox Faith, expressed and revealed in the Bible and the Liturgy, divine remembrance means glory and life, while divine forgetfulness means corruption and death. In Christ, God remembers man and his world. Remembering Christ, man remembers God and his Kingdom. Thus the remembrances of the Divine Liturgy are themselves a form of living communion between heaven and earth.
Furthermore, in every Divine Liturgy, we dont just remember and commemorate Christs death; we remember His entire LIFE. Consider these prayers said during the Epiklesis (where the priest asks the Holy Spirit to come down and transform the gifts):
Priest : Together with these blessed powers, merciful Master, we also proclaim and say: You are holy and most holy, You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. You are holy and most holy, and sublime is Your glory. You so loved Your world that You gave Your only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. He came and fulfilled the divine plan for us. On the night when He was delivered up, or rather when He gave Himself up for the life of the world, He took bread in His holy, pure, and blameless hands, gave thanks, blessed, sanctified, broke and gave it to His holy disciples and apostles, saying:
Take, eat, this is my Body which is broken for you for the forgiveness of sins.
People: Amen.
Priest : Likewise, after supper, He took the cup, saying:
Drink of it all of you; this is my Blood of the new Covenant which is shed
for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
People: Amen.
Priest : Remembering, therefore, this command of the Savior, and all that came to pass for our sake, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious coming...
Now, one may say, well thats all well and good, but Christ didnt REALLY mean it was His body and blood. After all, when He said I am the door in John 10:7 He didnt mean He was a wooden plank!
And this is true. Christ isnt a wooden plank.
But if you look at the verse of the door in context, the Bible tells us that Christ was speaking in allegorical terms.
John 10:6-10 (New King James Version)
6 Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.
7 Then Jesus said to them again, Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came before Me[a] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Furthermore, the Church has never inferred that Christ was a door. On the other hand, the Church has always believed that the bread and wine ARE transformed into the body and blood of Christ.
Consider the following quotes from the Early Church Fathers:
"Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead."
St. Ignatius of Antioch "Letter to the Smyrnaeans", paragraph 6. circa 80-110 A.D.
"This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God's Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus."
St. Justin Martyr "First Apology", Ch. 66, inter A.D. 148-155.
In Conclusion, partaking of the body and blood of Christ and understanding the meaning of the Eucharist is not just a nice tradition held in the Church, rather it is something that is critical to our salvation.
