Even Satan understands us well enough to know that we will give everything we own to preserve our life (Job 2:4). That is how valuable we consider life. We would have to think something is awfully important before we’d voluntarily give up our life for it.
In that light, we gather around these two emblems just now. They draw us back to the giving of a man’s life, and not to just any life—the most important life ever—the life of the Lord himself. This occasion reminds us how much we are worth, how much we are worth to him, how much he values our relationship to him and to the Father.
Read Essay →Funny how little things stick with you. When I was in the third grade, a photographer came to our school and took pictures of us. When the individual billfold-size shots came, on the little package in blue letters, I remember seeing, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” That was my first exposure to the well-known expression.
Today we say these emblems “speak to us”; they’re “worth a thousand words.” They’re a visual message that brings back what took place real-ly so long ago. Grape juice and unleavened bread portray to our mind’s eye the shed blood and given body that says, “I care about you this much.”
Read Essay →When our Lord instituted this observance, he said, “This is my body that is given for you”; this is my blood that is given for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24, etc.). No one took it from him; he gave it willingly (John 10:18). And it did not just happen; he did it deliberately for a reason—for us.
This most notable feature of the Messiah’s coming is still reflected in the secular Christmas season, even among people who are not in close connection with the meaning of the celebration. They give gifts—like the Magi, who gave gifts, like God himself who gave his Son into the world and gave his only Son in Jerusalem at the end of the life that began in Bethlehem.
Read Essay →Family is a big part of this season. We take off work to spend time with family. We travel to be with family—sometimes across the state, across the country, even across the ocean. We may get together several times during these holidays. We exchange gifts and just sit around and talk or play games or go hunting. Lots of food gets prepared and enjoyed—all in the family setting. It is bonding time.
Read Essay →“He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we considered him struck by God and afflicted. But he was wounded because of our transgressions and bruised because of our sins. The chastisement to bring us peace was laid on him, and by his stripes we are healed. We have all gone astray like sheep and turned to our own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Read Essay →“I am not alone because the Father is with me.”
A genuine leader must be willing to stand alone when necessary. That feature played out in the extreme in Christ’s bringing in the “kingdom” of God. As the distinctives of his work drew toward their conclusion, he found himself alone. His own disciples scattered when the Shepherd was struck, and they did so despite their resolve “even to die with him” (Matthew 26:35).
Read Essay →“Do you love me more than these do?”
What do you do when you know that “sticking to your guns” will cost you dearly? You will not get hired for a job you need and want. You will get passed over for a promotion, you will get fired, get fined, get jailed, get shunned by friends, disowned by parents, divorced by your spouse! What do you do? So to speak, you take communion.
Read Essay →The Father has made peace through blood shed on a cross. That peace consists of reconciliation, which reverses alienation (Colossians 1:19-20). Peace between people makes peace possible between nations and with other kinds of hostilities. Peace between people also creates the circumstance for peace within us. Feeling accepted and forgiven removes the inner conflict between what we aspire to be and what we achieve in living.
Taking communion brings back the memories of what it took to lay the foundation for peace, real peace, inner peace, universal peace, eternal peace. Willingly giving one’s body and shedding one’s blood are appalling displays of how much peace means to people and to God. These tokens of body and blood are tokens of peace. They draw us back into the ancient event that in this observance we resurrect into the life of each of us who participate in it now.
Read Essay →God does not need a majority in order to win. That’s because of what’s “won.” Force cannot form friendships. Force is used to get results that are beyond what naturally leads to an effect. Authority and force wielded by a few can “make” the majority do what they do not want to do, but interpersonal associations require persuasion to freely accept what is offered, not forced. That’s why it is said, “The quality of mercy is not forced.”
Read Essay →Reversing a trend is hard to do but necessary to be done. Our behavior brings consequences that form a series; that series tends to get worse and spread to other things, and we end up with a cumulative effect we don’t want but can’t stop.
Christ’s mission had to reverse a pattern we’ve all caught ourselves up in. That was harder for him to do than for us to get it started. His work aimed at stopping what had been in progress since God created our first parents. Jesus did more than teach about what to do and not to do, so his mission was tougher than being a lawgiver or prophet or rabbi. He was sent to be a savior.
Read Essay →“If we have participated in what is like [Christ’s] death, we will participate in what is like his resurrection.”
In our baptism we said we were “burying” the old way of living and “resurrecting” to a new one. That act looked forward to renewed fellowship with God through a new identity with his Son. Friendship with God is not the kind of thing that can be finished business The meaning of breaking bread together corresponds with the meaning of our original commitment. It acknowledges our ongoing concern to be God’s people by ongoing affirmation to walk in the new life.
Read Essay →Several kinds of things make us thankful. We are grateful that we were not frustrated in what we wanted to accomplish—it did not rain before we could get the hay in the barn.
We are grateful that we had help doing what we could not do by ourselves—as when people helped us move the piano in from the U-Haul and take it upstairs.
We are grateful for something nice that came unexpectedly out of someone’s good will—and the thoughtful motorist who stopped and changed the tire that our own tire tools could not manage.
Read Essay →Most of our time we spend on smaller things: getting the shopping done, mowing the lawn, watching a baseball game.
Much of what we use our abilities for are not the most important matters we face: learning to play an instrument in the high school band that we might not find much use for after we graduate, learning to play basketball although we will not likely be skilled enough to make a living at it later.
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