When people say that the sacraments are “like” the word, or the word made visible they typically mean like an abstract message.  Baptism somehow teaches something like “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”

But while this is a great message, it falls short of what sacraments are for because it falls short of what preaching is for.

Paul doesn’t write to churches that God loves the world so that believers will benefit from this love.  He writes things like:

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

When you preach to a Christian congregation you get to tell them things directly about themselves for them to believe about themselves.

If you have a pardon for sin in your worship service, then the pastor gets to assure the congregation from the pulpit: “God forgives you all your sins.”

And this is how the sacraments are “like” the preaching of the word.  Baptism and the Lord’s Supper say something about the grace of God to each participant.  “You are my friends who will sit at thrones at my table (because that is what you are doing now, pew design notwithstanding).”  “You are my son whom I love.”

Finally, a side-question: where does this “made visible” idea come from?  A blind person participates in the Lord’s Supper no less than a seeing person.  You do communion with your mouth, not your eyes.  And baptism is the Word made wet.  Visibility is non-essential.