ON THE WORSHIP OF CHRIST AMONG LUTHERANS
From the very important Apology or Vindication of the Christian Book of Concord, Chemnits’s Works, 10:442-443, trans. James L. Langebartels, ed. Kevin G. Walker, St. Louis: Concordia, 2018.
Thus in the Lord’s Supper we worship the Lord Christ because He is truly present there and distributes His body and blood with the bread and the wine. But we do not direct our worship to the external elements of bread and wine, as the Papists do, and as our opponents would like to attribute to us, but to Christ, God and man, who has instituted and manifests His presence in a special way in this activity.
We believe according to Christ’s institution that He is present in the Lord’s Supper and distributes His body and blood at the place where it is administered. Why should we not worship Him there, since He wants to be worshiped in all places? It is easy to answer their objection that though there should certainly be prayer in all places, prayer must not be directed every place but only where He has commanded it. Although the Words of Institution do not say, “Worship Me in the place where I distribute My body and blood,” nevertheless, because the Words of Institution clearly state that Christ Himself, true God and man, is present with His body and blood when the Lord’s Supper is properly used, no one but an Arian heretic will deny that He should and may be worshiped there in spirit and in truth. …
[Chrysostom writes]: The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper makes earth into heaven. Therefore, climb (with your devotion) to the gate of heaven, even to the gate of the heaven of all heavens, and look around, and you will learn how and what is said about the Lord’s Supper. For what is most costly and precious in the heaven of all heavens, I say, is served up to you on earth (in the Lord’s Supper). In a royal court the gilded paneling and the royal roof are not the most noble and precious things there, but rather the royal body in his majesty sitting on the royal throne. So also the body of our King, the Lord Christ, is what is most precious in heaven, for I do not point you to an angel or archangel, or to the heaven of all heavens, but I point you to the one who is Lord over all of this. Do you now understand that that you see what is most precious in heaven on earth? You not only see it, you not only touch it—But you eat it! When you have taken it, you go back home. (1 Cor. 10, Homil. 24, NPNF 12:143.)