Sacraments

Sacraments are a “visible and outward sign of an inner and hidden grace”, or put another way they are a physical act that help make God visible. We could say all Christian life is sacramental, as we are called to live out God’s love and purposes to those around us. Christians also believe that God is more clearly seen in some physical acts that incorporate personal faith, shared tradition and the welcoming of the Holy Spirit.

All Christians agree on baptism and holy communion (also called eucharist or mass) as sacraments. These are also called dominical sacraments as they directly link to Jesus’ own baptism (Mark 1.9-11) and Last Supper (Matthew 26.26-30). Depending on tradition, other sacraments include marriage, ordination, confession, confirmation, and anointing of the sick. 

Christians disagree on what happens within each sacrament, perhaps most notably for holy communion – are sacraments ways of commemorating what God is already doing, ways of God being more present than normal, or something else?

What Christians do agree upon is that in some way, God is at work through the sacraments, to reveal something of their character to those drawing near. 

Christians today will generally agree that sacraments are effective because of God’s grace, rather than the merits of those presiding. For example, in baptism, once a Christian is baptised with water and “in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, they are generally held to be irrevocably baptised. This is also the case for ordination; if the bishop ordaining someone later turns out to be particularly spiritually or morally deficient, this generally does not disqualify the ordination. These situations can call for good pastoral empathy, as Christians in good conscience may explore how the sacraments interact with their own specific contexts.

Sacraments are Trinitarian in nature, in that they are ways of remembering the original call of the Father upon Christians to be disciples, are in some way modelled after the life of Jesus, and are made effective by the power of the Holy Spirit. They are remarkable ways of entering into the presence of God.

In this section

Further resources

As with all spiritual practices, the sacraments are more experienced than taught. If you haven’t had the opportunity to experience them, we would encourage you to find a local church.

Books
Andrew Davidson, Why Sacraments?
Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor
Ross Thompson, The Sacraments
Rowan Williams, Being Christian

For children
Godly Play provides a way for children to explore faith interactively, for example Holy Baptism

Example Liturgies
Church of England Baptism
United Reformed Church Baptism 

Methodist Holy Communion
Roman Catholic Holy Communion (Mass) 

Church of England Ordinal (ordination) 

Methodist Marriage

Further content to come, suggestions welcome