The Enterprise Begun
With most things, getting started is the hardest part. A start-up effort may not have a lot of resources already in place to draw on. The entrepreneur may not have a company of people who share the vision, provide assistance, and offer encouragement. The expertise of others may not be available to supply the emotional energy and strength of character the undertaking requires. Besides, any backlash from vested interests gets directed at people who launch out in a new and different way.
Read Essay →There are several kinds of memorials: plaques and buildings, parades and celebrations. But there are not many memorial meals. Scripture describes two memorial meals: the Passover and the Lord’s Supper. They both recall events that led to something new: the origin of a nation and the origin of a fellowship; the inauguration of Israel and the inauguration of spiritual Israel, the assembly of God and the body of Christ.
The first anticipated the second, and the second was instituted during an observance of the first. The Passover supper centered around the sacrificed paschal lamb; the Lord’s supper centers on Messiah’s self-sacrifice. The Passover animal without blemish saved from ceremonial death; the Person without fault saves us from spiritual death—alienation from God and from each other.
Read Essay →All reality fits together as a unified system. As a result, we can have a unified field of knowledge that makes sense. The down-to-earth connects with the heavenly, the present with the eternal, the everyday with the unusual, the mundane with the divine.
What holds true for reality itself also holds true for these emblems we use to represent the significant past event that supplies the distinctive reason for gathering here today. Observing the simple, down-to-earth bread and grape juice connects our minds, wills, affections, aspirations, attitudes, and intentions to the death of our Lord for us, and commits us to all the implications that singular death involved.
Read Essay →The Power of Origins
The origin of something determines its potentials, its “genetic potential.” That principle applies to Christian beginnings as well. It connects us with the original intent of Christ’s work as well as the power to deal in hope with even the most adverse circumstances of living.
Christ gave himself to the will of the Father to the extent that he lost his life in doing so. Receiving these tokens of commitment taps into what provides hope for triumph after trial and even offers resurrection after death.
Read Essay →Well-Done
“It’s done” (John 19:30). Christ’s last words mark the finalizing of his life’s purpose among us. Not only was it a matter of doing God’s will more than what he himself would have wanted (Luke 22:42); it was a matter of finishing it.
These elements call to mind the Christ, what he did, and how he did it. Since the continuation of Christian living and mission is up to us now, observing them is—among many things—a pledge to perseverance, a commitment to carry through. At the end of his ministry, Paul could say he’d finished the course (2 Timothy 4:7). We all want to be able to say that, because it is a person’s final condition that opens up into the eternal state.
Read Essay →To demonstrate divine power over human opposition, the Father could have removed “the cup” his Son would drink in six hours—but he didn’t. Jesus could have just walked away as he had on other occasions—but he didn’t (Luke 4:30; John 8:99; 10:39). He could have restrained the acts of his enemies, caused them to cower in apprehension (John 18:6) or walk away astounded at his powerful words (John 7:45)—but he didn’t (John 7:46; 18:6). He did not let his disciples fight for him (Matthew 26:51-52). He could have called for more than 60,000 angels to protect him—but he didn’t; one came to strengthen him (Luke 22:43ms). He could have come down from the cross in spectacular confrontation before everyone at Golgotha—but he didn’t. In short, he rid himself of all defenses, material and supernatural. “No one is taking my life away from me,” he said; “I am laying it down voluntarily” (John 10:17-18).
Read Essay →We live in the meantime. A stable came before the throne—a cross preceded the empty tomb. Between the accolades of the triumphal entry and the joys of the resurrection stood the instrument of death. Humility preceded exaltation; suffering came before reward. Hope for the joy of the second provided a resource for enduring the first: “For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).
These remnants of his crucifixion we observe on the morning of his resurrection. They proclaim his death till returns. Looking at the whole process enables us to see one part in light of the others, to leverage the future into power for the present, confident that sorrow and misfortune are never the final condition. The message of the emblems is for the meantime that we may endure temporary negative in our quest for eternal good.
Read Essay →We’re handling what symbolically associates us with a range of holy matters, because they connect us with the One whose body and blood they represent. Most specifically, however, they connect us with his final and most distinctive act of obedience to God. That act was ultimate self-giving in painful (body) death (shed blood), identified respectively with this bread and “fruit of the vine.”
Eating these emblems of pain and death stretches us beyond lesser expressions of devotion, love, and obedience that characterize living like Christ. As a group, we serve as the equivalent of his body in the world today. They are not to be taken lightly but with commitment to do, if need be, the ultimate any of us can do or be for his Father and ours.
Read Essay →We want to get close so we can understand. Being present at what’s happening gives us a better feel for it than hearing someone’s report or seeing it on television.
As to convictions, we believe that God knows and understands our human situation, but in our sense of things we long for “Immanuel.” Among several things, God’s nearness helps us feel that he does, in fact, “understand our frame” (Psalm 103:14). Without thinking, we project onto him the limitation of our own viewpoint—knowing better but not feeling that way.
Read Essay →Once in a while, what we want may differ from what God wants. Christ’s death by crucifixion was just such a case. His repeated prayers for things to be different were answered, “No.” Instead, an angel was sent to help him through it (Luke 22:43ms).
Sometime this year we may be faced with this kind of thing ourselves. The situation will be to our own disadvantage, even our own detriment, and there will likely be no angel from heaven to help us through it.
Read Essay →It does not matter, by analogy, whether it is Sunday or Friday morning, whether you are on Mount Olivet or Mount Scopus. It does not matter whether we are being acclaimed by our friends or condemned by our enemies. It does not matter whether we are riding high on a donkey or bending low under a cross, whether we are coming in triumph or going down in defeat: We do what we’re supposed to do; we are who we’re supposed to be.
Read Essay →Bucking popular viewpoints got our savior killed. He did not reinforce the opinions of political and religious heads of his day, nor did he confirm the expectations of the general public. He needed to withstand the misunderstandings and consequent bullying of the masses, or they would have had no reason to depart the ill-fated ramifications of their erroneous opinions.
As a growing concern in the modern world, we face this same age-old dynamic that tries to press religion into a foreign role. It wants Christianity to reinforce human culture instead of standing in prophetic relationship to it, critiquing it in terms of divine intentions. We face this opposition even from those who consider themselves part of the body of Christ.
Read Essay →Some things only certain people can do; they are the only ones with the knowledge required. We go to a doctor to get help with medical problems because we do not have the expertise ourselves to cope with those issues. Most people we know are limited in how much they can help with health concerns. We need a specialist to diagnose and treat our life-threating concerns.
Some things only certain people can do; they are the only ones with the abilities required. If the team needs a point guard, they need to find one with the native talents and developed skills to cover that role in the game. The team needs an athlete on the roster who can handle the ball—dribbling, passing, setting up plays, shooting.
Read Essay →Nothing worth having is easy to get. We talk about hard work as requiring blood, sweat, and tears. Indeed, what price, change!
In laying the groundwork for that endeavor, Jesus prayed with “strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:7) to the One who could save him from crucifixion. Some copies of Luke note that in the Garden during that prayer he sweat, as it were, drops of blood (Luke 22:44). The crown of thorns, the scourgings, and the crucifixion shed his blood. Christ’s mission cost the sweat of effort, the pain of bloodshed, and the sadness of tears.
Read Essay →What price, success! Things don’t just happen; they don’t just take care of themselves, and they don’t just do it quickly and easily, especially big things, important things. Success calls for a willingness to do whatever it takes in effort made and in risk taken—in loss, danger, suffering.
Christ had no personal home or immediate family. His work led to rejection by the religious establishment and growing threats against his very life. Finally, he felt the pain of thorns, scourging, and crucifixion as the forces of evil resisted his campaign for good.
Read Essay →Free Indeed
The more important something is, the more it costs. “What price freedom!” In a concerted way we remember annually those who have given that “last measure of devotion” to secure and protect what we consider certain “inalienable rights”: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Gathering in this memorial observance, we acknowledge in a concerted way what it took to secure and protect the even more difficult aspect of human liberty—freedom from the power and penalty of personal sin. The Father has deemed it appropriate that the Son give his last measure of devotion for fellowman in securing the basis for release from this enslavement. “If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed” (John 8:36).
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