Lesson 2-26 "The Sacrament"

I really like the objective of this lesson: "Each young woman will participate with deeper understanding in the ordinance of the sacrament." It's so easy to let it go by taking it entirely for granted week after week - but if you really consider what the sacrament is for and what it's doing, it's amazing that we take it as casually as we sometimes do. It can be a ho-hum experience or it can be a genuine opportunity to bring something to the altar, to be serious about preparation and to really hunger/thirst for its spiritual nourishment, and to re-make one's baptismal covenant with renewed humility and determination. I think poor hapless "Pam" in the lesson is like many of us - quiet, reverent even, during the sacrament, but something's missing. This lesson's a chance to inject "deeper understanding" into that moment within each week.

I've got four ideas.

1) Connect it to Passover. At Passover time this spring, I gave a short Wednesday-night Mutual presentation on the Jewish Seder and as I went along I explained the connection between the Passover Seder and the Last Supper. I think it gave the youth a new perspective on that supper, and therefore on the sacrament, to realize that it was a Passover dinner. Try Terry Treseder, "Passover Promises Fulfilled in the Last Supper" (Ensign April 1990) if you want to go that route in your lesson, maybe even with props (matzoh, grape juice, bitter herbs, salt water, a hard-boiled egg).

2) Re-tell the Easter story. We've had some great Easter lesson ideas you could draw on. Maybe walk through the last week and up through the resurrection in a living timeline. Act it out as eyewitness characters: Thomas, Peter, Mary, Roman centurion, Pilate. Do something to make it real and connect it to the amazing good news of the gospel.

3) Bake the bread. If you have Sacrament Meeting last, could you knead or bake a loaf for that day's Sacrament meeting?

4) Focus on the words of the prayers. Many girls may not have memorized them, seeing no particular need. See if they can recall both prayers word for word, by giving them a stack of shuffled phrases from them and having them tape them on the walls in order, working in pairs or groups - without peeking from the scriptures! I know I listen more intently when I know the words (partly because it's my sons & his peers who are blessing the Sacrament most weeks and I am listening hoping to hear an error-free rendition so they don't have to say it again. I know it's nerve-wracking for them so I'm silently cheering them on), and this could be a good opportunity to make sure that the girls know the prayers. Why are they slightly different from each other? Are there words or concepts they don't understand? Treat the prayers like any scripture passage and analyze the language, ideas, and doctrines with an in-depth class discussion.

Some resources about the sacrament prayers and their role in our Sunday worship services:

Paul Sybrowsky, "This Do In Remembrance of Me," Ensign Feb 2010
W. Mack Lawrence, "Sunday Worship Service," Ensign May 1991
Jeannette Waite Bennett, "A Hint from Heaven," New Era July 1996

One story.

One Sunday I was sitting near the front, close enough to see the sacrament table. The Sacrament hymn began, it was #181 "Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King," which like many of our sacrament hymns is in a gorgeous rich contemplative minor key. I was watching the priests tear the bread when the words came: "bruised, broken, torn for us, on Calvary's hill." As I saw those little torn pieces of bread dropping into the tray I was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of love and sorrow, for the broken and torn body of Christ. I can't explain why at that moment it felt incredibly real to me, but I have never forgotten the moment and the feeling; the sacredness of human hands tearing and breaking, in memory of a real body. The Sacrament is a simple ritual but one that is so pregnant with possibility and symbolism that I imagine such moments are not all that rare - moments when heaven-earth-food-memory-emotion all come together and sear themselves on the retina of your memory. Moments when the Sacrament becomes truly, indelibly real. Moments of gratitude and transcendent grace.