157 essays
Observing the Lord’s Supper supplies a corrective on church life. In one of the most familiar passages on this matter, Paul says,
“I received from the Lord what I passed on to you. The night he was betrayed he took a loaf, gave thanks, broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in memory of me.’ After the meal he took the cup, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in my blood. As often as you drink it, do it in memory of me.’”
Read Essay →We always stand at the junction between past and future. That means we benefit from both God’s deeds from the past and his promises about the future. The things he has done guarantee the things he has said he’ll do.
As that present junction point moves forward, we carry with us observances that combine memory and hope. The Lord’s Supper is one such observance. That fact appears in one of Paul’s comments to the Corinthians: “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you show the Lord’s death [past] till he comes [future].” His coming again is as certain as his death before; that hope is as grounded as that memory.
Read Essay →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 →These emblems picture how much God loves us. Our hands, so to speak, hold the pierced hand of broken flesh and shed blood. The difference between our hands and his corresponds with the differences between everyday love and absolute devotion.
What we contemplate here is of primary concern. Love given triggers love returned. It calls us to respond in kind and raises the bar from wherever it is to its highest level. It puts in perspective how far we have yet to go in becoming what we have the potential to become. “We have not yet resisted unto blood in striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4).
Read Essay →Old Testament events admonish us with their implications. The account about Jonah the prophet is a case in point. When he preached to the people in Nineveh, they believed him and acted on his warning by fasting, putting on sackcloth, and sitting in ashes. Their stricken conscience responded to Jonah’s forthright proclamation, “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed” (Jonah 3:4). This lone foreign figure didn’t perform any miracles in their streets to confirm his claim.
Read Essay →Cameras, microscopes, telescopes, binoculars all need to be brought into focus to see clearly what we want to look at. This loaf and cup bring into focus an event that could become a fuzzy memory that comes near to vanishing away. Christ’s voluntary suffering to the point of death culminated his earthly ministry.
In turn, that act itself brought into focus a pattern where God provides for his people what they cannot provide for themselves. Christ as a real person embodies self-giving for the need of us weaker brothers. That is why Paul could say that “Christ” was the rock in the wilderness that provided water for people who could not provide their own (1 Corinthians 10:3). Similarly, the Hebrew writer could say of Moses that he counted the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (11:26). The Christ principle stands at the apex of everything our faith is about.
Read Essay →These emblems not only remind us; they teach us. Hebrews 12:2 recommends “looking to Jesus the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarded the shame, and sat down on the right hand of God’s throne.” The glory beyond the agony became an aid to enduring it.
Christ has engendered trust in him (author) and carried trust to its highest demonstration in the way he died (perfecter). The loaf and cup connect us with that kind of person, and then with his way of getting through limitations and stress and rejection and pain. Such things are not our final condition; they are along the way to the final condition. The future empowers us in the present; the eternal strengthens us through the temporary.
Read Essay →“A friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17), even when he is on a cross. In the Garden, Jesus protected his disciples from being caught up in the fray. After all, he was not leading an insurrection against the Jewish nation or Roman rule. This was his job alone, which had to do with an entirely different kind of “kingdom.”
He healed the severed ear of Malchus (John 18:10; Luke 22:51). Was Malchus a lead attacker as servant of the high priest there at Caiaphas’ behest? He was close enough to the front of the action for Peter to attack him.
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 →The Lord’s Supper is like a peg on a wall. It is useless aside from what we hang on it; yet it is crucial for holding up what needs to hang there.
Likewise, these emblems have no significance in themselves—only in what they’re for. They mean what we mean into them. Instead of eating a piece of flatbread and taking a sip of grape juice, we hang on them a picture of our Lord at the conclusion of his life.
Read Essay →As we always say, this bread and fruit of the vine represent Christ’s flesh and blood. They picture his sacrificing himself—not like Old Testament priests, who sacrificed animals, which foreshadow his self-sacrifice for us (Hebrews 7:27; 9:25). There is nothing magical in the emblems themselves nor in blood and flesh as such. The value lies in what the emblems and the flesh and blood point to.
What they point to is violent death, in which blood was shed and body was broken. Our Lord did not die from sickness or old age, but from devotion carried to its fullest extent. He did it for us; so, these emblems freshen our memory of his obedience to God for our benefit and commits us to taking up our crosses and doing likewise.
Read Essay →In one place scripture connects the Lord’s Supper with his return. Paul says that observing these emblems proclaims the Lord’s death “till he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). In looking forward, communion pledges our lasting commitment during this meantime circumstance. That will include times of opposition, times of uncertainty, times of grief, times of overwhelming need. Periodically re-affirming the pledge helps maintain faithfulness to it, and prepares us for the joy that He will reveal afterwards.
Read Essay →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 →Paul charged his Corinthian readers to use communion as an occasion to examine themselves (1 Corinthians 11:28-31). He warned that failure to do that tended toward spiritual weakness and insensitivity. A “sickly,” “out-of-touch” condition comes from not taking opportunities to compare where we are to where we should be. Superficial religion does not bring about personal improvement; going through the motions does not glorify God.
In this observance we remember when our Lord had to face excruciating execution. It’s when we look death in the eye that things line up in proper fashion. We can use this time to reset our priorities more properly and to adjust ourselves to a healthier spiritual condition of faith and practice.
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 →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 →Getting something rolling is not the end of any work. Continued efforts must keep the matter rolling. Jesus’ ministry, his death and resurrection, and the “shedding forth” of the Spirit on Pentecost were not the end of the story. Luke summarizes the first Christians’ endeavors at carrying the faith forward right from the start: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayers” (Acts 2:42).
Our gathering today incorporates these same four observances, including “breaking bread.” Doing so recognizes that convictions and commitments fade with time unless we make efforts to counteract that tendency. The sufferings of the Messiah happened whether we remember them or not; they meant what they still mean whether we acknowledge it or not. But they do not benefit us if they are not continuously alive before our eyes. “Lest we forget Gethsemane; lest we forget his agony; lest we forget his thorn-crowned brow, lest we forget his love for us,” let’s go to Calvary (“Lead Me to Calvary” by Jennie Evelyn Hussey).
Read Essay →We are participating in what was an eternity in the making. Our worship today is rooted in what happened in prospect before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Prior to creating us, God chose to initiate a plan to retrieve us, knowing that we would wander off from being his friends and serving him. He chose to create us in his image despite knowing that by endowing us with a will and freedom to use it, he would be enabling us to misuse it.
Read Essay →In this observance we highlight the most important event that ever took place. The death of the Lamb of God provides a solution for the problem of sin on this side of the grave. Besides, it establishes the terms of judgment on the other side of the grave. It’s the focal point of history and the basis for eternal destinies. From this speck of space and this tick in time, we bring ourselves into God’s eternal, universal purpose.
Read Essay →The cross symbolizes Christ, the Christian faith, and salvation from sin. It was the focal point of our Lord’s several acts of compassion leading up to his death.
He healed the ear of Malchus, one of those who had come to arrest him (John 18:10). He told the soldiers to let his disciples go and just arrest him (John 18:8). He told the begging insurrectionist on the cross beside him that he would be with him in Paradise that same day (Luke 23:43). He tried to warn his executioners what they were fulfilling when he quoted Psalm 22:1, “God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He prayed for his jealous accusers, “Forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34?).
Read Essay →We return to this table as to the “altar” on which our Lord offered himself long ago. He has given us the right to even be here as in the Holy of Holies itself. Those who serve earthly pursuits and visible tabernacles do not have the right to approach this sacred place (Hebrews 13:10).
When we follow our Lord to this altar, we follow him as to an altar, but we also follow him into the true Holy of Holies, heaven itself (Hebrews 9:24-25). Coming into the experience together involves a striking combination of requirement and privilege—the highest privilege of coming into the presence of God himself and the highest demand of putting our all on the altar. Nothing less than what he demonstrated is appropriate to the most supreme calling.
Read Essay →People are who they are. They are also who they aspire to be.
We are who we are. We are also who we choose to become.
And from the former we strain toward the latter. Aspiration is better embodied in a real person than in an abstract ideal. We shortchange ourselves in choosing other people to emulate. But on this occasion we remember an ever-present example from the past who was tempted in all points like we are, yet without sin.
Read Essay →Mankind’s basic sin lies in the quest for autonomy. Correcting that problem constitutes reversing Eden. Aspiring to be like God showed itself in a perverse way when our first parents sought to decide right and wrong for themselves (Genesis 3:5). Everyone since then has followed their lead.
We do not have the right to assume that role, because “God has made us, not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3), and he had purpose in creating us. So, ultimate self-determination cannot be our prerogative. But more than that, we are not constituted for it. When we assume that independence mentality, we both sin and fail. We sin against his privileged position, and we fail because we are dependent beings. Death tells us that in no uncertain terms.
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 →“Being a Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). It is one thing to know something; it is more to know it from experience. In an experiential sense, Christ learned what it meant to obey the Father despite the extremely painful temptation to do otherwise. That seems to be the ultimate reason for allowing evil to express itself—albeit as limited by duration and degree.
A greater degree of goodness becomes possible by the presence of evil. It is a goodness maintained despite temptation and suffering. That greater goodness our Lord learned especially during the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane and the suffering on Golgotha. And wrapped up in that culminating obedience lies the foundation he laid for redeeming evil into good.
Read Essay →Human government has a divinely sanctioned role in society. It serves to restrict evil and keep citizens from committing crimes (Romans 13:1-7). At this table of remembrance, we observe an even higher calling, calling to do what we ought to do (a positive role), not just to refrain from evil (a negative role) or maintain what is already good (a neutral role, as in “do no harm”). The occasion that has prompted this observance set a high standard for human resolve. In doing the Father’s will, Jesus did not just further a neutral circumstance; he established a positive purpose in the face of opposition—violent opposition at that, one that took his life in horrible fashion.
Read Essay →We song asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Putting ourselves in that event helps us appreciate what went on there. Eating this bread and drinking this cup, puts us in the event and give us a taste of what it took for Christ to do God’s will.
By extension, today’s participation in that event through communion, moves us to step up for what it takes to do the Father’s will here and now in us. The past in Christ becomes key to the present in us.
Read Essay →Paul begins Christ’s words of institution by saying, “on the night he was betrayed.” Those words rivet attention on an aspect of the situation that we may overlook. The words became particularly real in the Garden of Gethsemane later that night when Judas, one of his closest associates for three-plus years, performed his betrayal with—of all things—a kiss.
At one time or another, most of us have been betrayed, something usually done by someone close to us—as in this case—someone we trusted. We know how that feels, and the Lord would have felt it too. But that broken trust did not disillusion him and cause him to “throw in the towel.” He carried through his responsibility when Judas betrayed and his disciples deserted.
Read Essay →Incredibly, while Jesus was suffering on the cross, the religious leaders unleashed the taunt, “He trusts in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him” (Matthew 27:43). God delivered him from the tomb beyond the cross rather than from the cross.
Should we face such an experience, we resolve here to persevere in the hope of a better resurrection (Hebrews 11:35) on the other side of what people might do to us (Luke 12:4). In this hope, Christ has forged the way. We partake, we remember, we go and live likewise.
Read Essay →Imagine Jesus’ exhaustion from being up all day and all night till three o’clock the next day, together with the abuse he endured during that time. No wonder he did not have enough strength left to carry the cross all the way up to Golgotha. In the soldiers’ mockery and mistreatment, he felt the sting of rejection from the very people he was trying to help. His feeling of abandonment by his closest disciples and even by the Father himself, issued in the cry from the cross, “Why have you forsaken me?” Such lesser aspects of his last temptation add to the physical suffering that rivets our attention on his final day.
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 →We are holding symbols of caring. In his Son, God shows us that deity understands what it is like to be human—to be weak, though he is omnipotent; to die, though he is eternal; to hurt, hunger, feel abandoned, and be tempted like we are, yet without sin. “He knows our frame” (Psalm 103:14), but caring bridges the difference between us and the ideal.
These symbols say how much he cares. They picture his perfection standard combined with great grace as demonstrated in his Son. The Son’s last act of ministry epitomizes the value God places on us and draws us back to live to him in like fashion.
Read Essay →A person might wonder what would have happened if Jesus had not finished drinking the cup the Father had given him. As it was, in his dying breath he could say he’d finished it.
Remembering him in this way acknowledges the completion of what he came to do for us. It also involves us in agreeing that carry-through is an important part of our own calling before God. This meal commits us to do just that, regardless of how long it takes or how difficult it turns out to be. Till death we follow our calling.
Read Essay →Nothing important is ever easy. It may be easy to understand, but doing it is another matter. The loaf and cup here in front of us remind us about the powerful temptation in the Garden, the temptation for Jesus to do other than what he knew was the Father’s will. They remind us that nothing is ever changed by staying in the Garden, never changed by knowing what to do. It takes coming out of the Garden, so to speak, to do what it takes.
Read Essay →In Jesus’ final appearance in John’s gospel, Jesus tells Peter that when he gets old, he will stretch out his hands and someone else will carry him where he does not want to go. John explains that Christ’s cryptic comment indicated “the manner of death by which Peter would glorify God” (21:19).
In the lead-up to that prediction, the Lord asked Peter three times whether he loved him—as a reversal to Peter’s threefold denial earlier? After each of Peter’s responses comes a statement of responsibility: “feed and tend my lambs and sheep.” Then, following the prediction about the manner of death, Jesus says, “Follow me.” That command echoes the previous admonition to him, “Take up your cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). That admonition echoed Peter’s objection to the prospect of his Lord’s own crucifixion.
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 →These emblems call us to patience and perseverance. Christ’s first coming was centuries in fulfillment, and his second coming has proved to be the same. Our act of remembrance anticipates hope—a hope not weakened by delay but strengthened by longing. We enter God’s sense of time in which it is not so much the expanse of years as the certainty of outcome.
The accomplishment of Messiah’s first coming undergirds our confidence about his coming again. Meantime, conditions may be hard, but, for the joy that lies beyond them, we endure as those whose confidence rests on the advent culminating in what this feast commemorates.
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 →Jesus died on Friday, but we commemorate it on Sunday. That custom arose because his resurrection on the first day of the week made clear what his death on the cross meant three days earlier.
Two other men died that same day the same way, but Jesus was not a criminal executed for his own crimes, but a sacrifice offered for our sins. God made that clear by bringing him out of the tomb. This bread and grape juice stand for his body and blood, given and shed. As we say so often from the apostle Paul, Jesus was delivered up on Friday for our trespasses and raised on Sunday for our justification (Romans 4:25).
Read Essay →With many things, if we do not do them completely, we may as well not do them at all. Preparing the ground, planting the seed, watering the plants does not amount to anything if we don’t harvest the crop. Laying a foundation and setting up walls and rafters does not amount to anything if we don’t roof the building. We must finish what we start to get any benefit out of it.
Read Essay →“Whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). “Conformed to the image of his Son” is something more specific than being like him. It means being like Christ in passing through suffering on the way to glory. God pre-determined that purification through tribulation should precede reigning on high forever. That was the case with his Son, and it is the case with us sons as well.
Read Essay →Holding your late father’s wedding ring brings a sense of connection with him. It reminds you of who he was, what he did for you, the attitude he took toward you.
Holding the emblems Jesus left behind has a similar effect. They put us in touch with the One whose abused body and shed blood they resemble. We who wear his name keep alive in ourselves all that he stood for, especially as expressed in the crowning act of his earthly ministry.
Read Essay →The Lord’s Supper brings the Lord’s life and death into our present circumstance. That connection between past and present is made even greater by John’s comment, “The blood of Jesus Christ continues to absolve us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Christ’s self-sacrifice is not something finished and done with. Since we continue to “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), we need continual cleansing from sin. With these emblems we acknowledge his ongoing involvement in our ongoing relationship to God.
Read Essay →“Shedding blood” means dying an unnatural death, in this case a death for sins. Jesus maintained his mission till his dying breath. That was not just for a cause but to a person, the Father. Giving one’s life is the most anyone can do for any reason. Christ’s ultimate self-giving was also his last, coming as it did after a full life of righteous endeavor for God.
We identify with that righteousness when we join this observance. We commit to his values and purposes because he is Lord after becoming the Savior. God counts us as righteous like him on the condition of that commitment.
Read Essay →Part of crucifixion protocol was having the victim carry the cross to the place where he would be nailed to it. In addition to this humiliation on the way to Golgotha, Jesus felt the weight of that cross plus the weight of responsibility that bore down on his shoulders. He felt the overwhelming burden of having everyone depending on him for what only he could do for them.
On occasion we have responsibilities that only we can take care of. By fulfilling the momentous role that the Father assigned him, Christ spurs on Christians to make sure we carry through like he did.
Read Essay →Today’s joint exercise is a graphic reminder that we can no longer feel that God does not realize what it means to be in our condition. We can’t say he does not understand what it is like to be rejected by people you’ve considered your friends. We can’t say he does not know how it feels to be abandoned by people you care about. We can’t say that the Great Spirit has no idea what physical pain feels like.
Read Essay →Ultimate issues call for ultimate measures, The ultimate issue everywhere has always been broken friendships, human and divine. That friendship consists of behaviors toward each other, not just closeness to, descent from, and likeness to.
If those behaviors and their attitudes and motives are self-centered, the associations are strained and broken. We call them “sins.”
So what happens now? This “breaking bread” calls for our undivided attention to what has happened: God has sent his Son to establish the only case of perfect righteousness in the human realm. That “Christ event” culminated in his being killed on a cross by those who refused to accept him as coming in the Messianic role.
Read Essay →Paul’s comments about communion include discernment. That means, first of all, that it not get lost inside a meal—as a course in the love feast he cautions his readers about in 1 Corinthians 11:17-22. It means not letting this observance be a pointless ritual. More personally it calls for discerning the body of Christ in it (11:29) and discerning ourselves as we participate (11:31).
Coming to the table reserves a place in our gathering for introspection. That is a natural thing to do because these emblems memorialize Christ’s giving his life for our sins. So we do well to evaluate our appreciation for what he did by evaluating our motives, attitudes, and behaviors in response to it. Discerning puts meaning into the emblems.
Read Essay →Human resistance does not thwart divine intention. The cross represents human resistance; the empty tomb represents divine triumph. The communion we observe on Sunday testifies to the divine triumph over human resistance last Friday; otherwise, there would be no reason to observe it. In this case, that earlier rebellion even helped accomplish the divine intent.
In effect, the Jewish people and the religious leaders in Jesus’ day had tried to redefine the Messiah’s role away from personal righteousness toward political independence. They failed; God resurrected the One they crucified. Death on a cross and three days in the ground were as futile as Jonah’s attempt to run away from God’s commission to preach in Nineveh.
Read Essay →“Actions speak louder than words.” Jesus meant something like that when he said, “Nobody has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). He said that the night before he did that. His follow-up in the morning spoke more than all his sermons combined.
That same crucifixion eve, he instituted this simple custom to keep in remembrance of him and his life’s main principle. It won’t take us long this morning to repeat the custom, but it will take us all day and the rest of our days to live it out. It does not take much effort to act out this gesture, but it may take everything we’ve got to do it. He went first; it’s our turn to show how much we care.
Read Essay →One major activity of God in the world is drawing the spiritual out of the physical. In keeping with that program, he uses the tangible to picture the intangible and to embed in our memories the acts of God in history that bear significance for our attitudes and behavior.
The physical emblems we are holding point to spiritual meanings that impact elements in us that we cannot measure. Those intangibles represent what Christ meant when he talked about coming among us to give abundant “life.”
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 have here tokens of Christ’s life-giving life and his continuing presence. “He was delivered up for our transgressions and was raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The cross and empty tomb are two parts of the same final event in his life: highest obedience authenticated by divine resurrection. What Friday means is proved by Sunday’s vindication, and Sunday’s vindication opens up to a lasting presence with us.
These emblems picture something real beyond them like words indicate realities beyond them. The bread and fruit of the vine point to his real presence that is here but we do not see. They are in our hands, our mouths, our hearts; and so is he today and every day.
Read Essay →The loaf and cup represent reasons for looking forward to the final proof of our faith. Our Lord’s vicious death sets up the fact of his victorious resurrection over death and over the ones that did it to him.
Jesus did not die from age, sickness, starvation, some accident, or a capital crime. He “shed his blood,” which means he died in an unnatural way. He did not just bleed from a cut; he bled to death from crucifixion. The wonderful thing about this horrible thing is that it gives us the greatest confidence imaginable in the truthfulness of what we believe. It likewise gives us the greatest confidence imaginable that God loves us. Nobody does something like that unless he genuinely loves.
Read Essay →We do not serve a dead Savior; we serve a living Lord. So the emblems he instituted for remembering his broken body and shed blood picture obedience to him as resurrected Lord. The reason there are emblems of his body and blood is that’s what he gave in obedience to the Father.
Likewise, our resurrected Lord ever lives to receive our total, permanent, and exclusive obedience. And he ever lives to intercede for us because our obedience is not always complete.
Read Essay →Jesus prayed fervently (Hebrews 5:7) for the Father to deliver him from the cup of crucifixion. Instead of sending twelve legions of angels to rescue him, he sent one angel to strengthen his endurance (Luke 22:43ms). Likewise, rather than removing hard experiences that can strengthen us like nothing else could, he gives us the power to deal with them. That enablement is not necessarily a supernatural deposit, but a personal presence by which we escape through the pain (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Read Essay →Jesus’ last words, “It’s finished” (John 19:30). His carry-through exemplified what he had told his disciples earlier about their future mission: “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. Everybody will hate you for my sake, but the one that endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:21-22).
What applied to him and his original followers applies to us who follow in their train. Accepting these emblems commits us to finishing the Father’s will like our Lord and his disciples did before us. It is a sobering thing we do here, one not to be taken lightly in prospect of what it means for us when we finish our course in Christ.
Read Essay →“You [Gentiles] were separated from Christ . . ., separated from the commonwealth of Israel, without hope and without God in the world. But you that were once afar off have come near by the blood of Christ. He’s the basis for peace between us. He made both of us into one group, tore down the dividing barrier between us, and abolished in his flesh the law made up of commanded regulations. That way, from the two groups he could create in himself one new united mankind, making peace between us, and reconciling both of us to God in one body through the cross.”
Read Essay →“[Christ] is our peace, who united [Jews and Gentiles] and tore down the wall [between the court of Gentiles and the Jewish quarters in the temple at Jerusalem]. He abolished in his flesh [the source of] enmity between them, that is, the Law made up of commandments as ordinances. He did it to create in himself from the two a new united humankind, so making peace. He did it to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having slain the enmity that way.”
Read Essay →We are taking part in a worldwide observance that has been going on for 2,000 years. Not only that, but Messiah’s death applies to the Mosaic era as well. The Hebrew writer says, “a death having taken place for transgressions under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15). But that is still not the whole story. “The gospel was preached even to the dead that were disobedient in the days of Noah” (1 Peter 3:19). Everyone’s destiny will be figured in relation to the event that we are remembering here at this table.
Read Essay →One set of emblems, so many reminders. After recounting Christ’s supreme example, the Hebrew writer notes that his readers “have not yet resisted unto blood in striving against sins” (12:4). The comment reminds us that we have not resisted sin to the extreme many have. Most importantly, though, Christ entered our world to make evident to us that we are not alone in this resistance.
In addition to our efforts along the way, God enters in to assist in carrying us through to the end. Our Lord’s example, pictured in this loaf and cup, supplies encouragement for dealing with challenges we face from time to time in our struggles against sin.
Read Essay →We serve God even in the face of extreme evil. The Christian faith provides a unique perspective on why a loving God lets the righteous suffer. Whatever the reason, it was important enough for him in the person of the Son to expose himself to its full force. By implication, he calls on us to persevere against evil threats.
This sobering observance identifies us with him in his final hour; so we do not participate superficially, because the emblems implicate us in our “last measure of devotion.” We cast our lot with those who even today are saying by their ultimate obedience, “Nevertheless, your will be done.”
Read Essay →The closer we are to the realities in our faith the more likely we are to remain faithful to the end. Our manner of life rests on a real Person in real events. It is not just an engaging idea; things have happened that embody ultimate principles and give them actuality.
This meal is the next best thing to being there. The communion elements picture the real event that we want to “exist” in our minds and hearts. We want it to “exist” there because we love the One who endured such cruelty to show how much he loved for us. Knowing that spurs us on to continued faithfulness.
Read Essay →A word particularly to you fathers today: Be struck by what you’re about to do.
I have two sons, David and Steve. We have worked together, played together, performed music together, talked a lot about lots of things, eaten countless meals across the table from each other for years. I can’t imagine being responsible for having David or Steve die a terrible death. I cannot imagine what it would take to bring myself to ask them to do that.
Read Essay →“From a crib to a cross” indicates innocence on both ends of life, from start to finish. We needed that kind of life as a model and a basis for our own innocence.
The Christmas story is stripped of life’s distractions. The Magi came to the palace in the capital, but Jesus had entered the world eight miles south of there in a barn. Instead of finding him with the king, the Wise Men found him in a house with a carpenter and his young wife. They did not approach a powerful ruler; they knelt to a baby. Position, power, prominence, and wealth have little to do with this story—except to provide contrast. Even the gold, frankincense, and myrrh served to finance the little family’s flight to a foreign country just to save the baby from being killed from jealousy.
Read Essay →In the beginning God created us in his image with the capacity to relate to other persons like he does. Furthermore, he demonstrated how persons relate to each other by how he does. He did not create us to worship him as if he needed something (Acts 17:25), but as those on whom he could bestow himself. In so doing, he established in the natural image the capacity for the ethical image expressed as outward-directed behavior toward others. That pattern scripture calls “love,” even saying, “God ‘is’ love” (1 John 4:8).
Read Essay →Who would think that a dead man could save anybody? God does surprise us with solutions to needs in ways we would never imagine. In this case, he has used Christ’s obedience even to death as a basis for offering life to all who avail themselves of the offer.
Today we use these emblems to reaffirm our own commitment to God through the Christ who gave body and blood for goodness’ sake. It may surprise us what God can do through our willingness to live out his purposes through us.
Read Essay →Antidote to Fear
Taking this bread and fruit of the vine is like taking an antidote. The elements themselves are not the antidote; it’s what they represent that’s the antidote to condemnation. “Being justified by his blood, we’ll be saved from wrath” (Romans 5:8). John speaks similarly in a context about judgment, punishment, and the fear of it, “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), that is, full-grown love for God takes away foreboding about the eternal future.
Read Essay →We have all done something for someone that really needed it. We were not sure he would appreciate it or take advantage of the opportunity it afforded. He might not keep his word to repay what he asked to borrow. He might try to take further advantage of our generosity.
Christ came here because we really needed help. He was willing to endure his brutal death at the end, even though he knew many of us would not take advantage of the opportunity it afforded, even though he knew some of us would try to take advantage of his grace.
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 →The emblems graphically picture what has to happen for joy to come. The pattern holds for life as a whole and for its segments. Meantime, living for him calls for effort, struggle, even suffering for there to be a “not yet” that is worth it all. The harder the labor, the more fulfilling the results. If we’re not willing to deal with the humiliation, we’re not worthy of receiving the exaltation.
Read Essay →The familiar hymn says, “Take Time to Be Holy.” A command requires the choice to obey, which means doing something; and that takes time. So in the song, we sing about something we do deliberately.
“Holy” means set aside for a special use. Even the vessels of the Jewish temple were holy; they were not used for anything else. But that holiness was something decided by others. Furthermore, we agree that, strictly speaking, we are holy because God considers us holy. There remains, however, a holiness that comes from us, from doing what it takes to become holy—like God, who is holy. (Leviticus 11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:7, etc.; 1 Peter 1:16.)
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 →Have you ever wondered whether somebody loved you? “Loves me, loves me not.” You weren’t sure. You were looking for times when the person paid attention to you, took time for you, helped you with something. We are hardwired with a desire to be loved; we want other people to care about us.
This loaf and cup tell us in no uncertain terms that God cares, that Christ cares; otherwise, he would never have laid down his life for us. That is the best thing one person can do for another (John 15:13), and that, in fact, is how he chose to show us that, yes, he cares; we can be sure he cares (Romans 5:5-11).
Read Essay →Which was the better football team in a game that went 21 to 20? Which team was better in a game that went 76 to 2? The second game offers a clearer case.
Seeing things in the extreme makes them clearer and more certain. That God cares about us may not seem clear in a situation where people dislike us, where natural disasters overwhelm us, where health issues weigh us down, where the future looks bleak.
Read Essay →“God’s Love Made Visible” (David Brubec) aptly describes God’s taking on human form. His experience of human existence removes our tendency to feel that God does not really understand what it is like to be human. He “learned obedience by the things he suffered,” being tempted in the human condition; so we can more easily relate to him as a merciful and faithful “high Priest” and be more inclined to respond to his help (Hebrews 3:17-18).
Read Essay →Christ learned obedience by the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). What we think we can handle is often less than what we can. The Savior qualified himself to be Savior (Hebrews 5:9) by carrying out in human reality the Father’s will for him. His was perfect in intent and in its fulfillment.
We stand in the same relation to the Father’s intentions as our older Brother stood, and take the emblems of the commitment fulfilled completely by the One we are remembering. The emblems make visible our vows to be like he was and do as he did.
Read Essay →Isaiah looked forward to see what we are looking back to remember: the suffering of Another because of what we have done. Were it not for our failures, there would have been no need for him to be saddened, misunderstood, despised, rejected, and abused to death.
Isaiah meant more than that our actions cause other people grief and pain. He meant more than that we’re the ones who deserve what they suffer. He meant more than that we cannot disentangle ourselves from the consequences of our own deeds against other people. He meant more than that we’re all included in this indictment (53:6).
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 →The night Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, he told his disciples that he would not be drinking the fruit of the vine with them again till the kingdom of God had come (Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:15, 18). This would be the last Passover meal he would observe with them; the shedding of his blood and the giving of his body would happen the next morning. For our purposes today, the point is that he would drink it with his disciples when the kingdom had come.
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 →“I didn’t come to do my own will; I came to do my Father’s will.” The Father and the Son have a oneness in the sense of unity; they were at one—united in purpose to do what happened through Jesus’ ministry, including Gethsemane through Golgotha: “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42; Mark 14:36; Matthew 26:39, 42).
Taking these representations of his body and blood says to the Father that we too qualify our will by his. As Christ accepted his cross to show his obedience to the Father and his love for us, so we observe these emblems of the cross to express our love to the Father and Son for agreeing together to do this for us.
Read Essay →Look “to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarded the shame, and has sat down on the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
The Hebrew writer’s statement combines unlikely things: joy and crucifixion. He can do so because of a third factor: “the joy that was set before him.” The positive frame of mind called joy, unlike “happiness,” does not depend on what’s “happening.” It is rooted in understanding more than in feelings. Joy comes from positive personal associations—as with the Father beside Christ on the throne as well as with others that look to him as their example. The more obvious point in this text, however, is that focusing on the future fosters present faithfulness.
Read Essay →Life mixes sadness and joy. The one tempers the other, so happiness is not constant and sadness is not permanent. We may do well then to speak of joy since happiness depends on what “happens.” But joy overrides what’s happening and follows the hard knocks that come. Furthermore, anticipating joy strengthens present endurance, “For the joy that was set before him, Jesus endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).
Observing the bread and wine illustrates the point and affirms our convictions about it. On this day of resurrection, we observe the emblems of the crucifixion—joy after sadness. We say several things at once, including our confidence that there will certainly be “joy in the morning” for us if he could anticipate it in his waning hours. So we take these emblems in light of the rest of the story: “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.”
Read Essay →“To the One that can present you faultless with great joy before the only God our Savior, be glory . . . forevermore.” On that Great Day we don’t have to feel like he is looking at us with our accumulated past sins and mistakes in mind. He will be looking at us as we are then, which grows out of the message in these emblems.
Here is something of how it works. When I was about twelve, I missed the curve in our driveway and drove our 1946 Ford Fergusen tractor over an iron post near the lane. The post bent over and then popped up again behind the radiator before I could get the tractor stopped. Instead of leaving bad enough alone, I backed the tractor up and ran that post through the radiator.
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 has designed human life to be outward directed. That is another way of saying that a life worth living is lived in love. It is self-giving for others. The process comes full circle when those others respond in kind and provide a sense of value to us who first directed our life outward to them.
What God has mapped out for us he himself first demonstrated toward us in all his acts of grace. We acknowledge that love when we take into ourselves these reminders of his greatest act of grace. Observing communion means buying into love for grace.
Read Essay →Coming here means giving credit where credit is due. Several TV commercials lately are making their appeals to “receive what you deserve.” Such wording does have a certain drawing power, but there is a more important idea that calls us not to take credit for what we have done and then appeal for what we deserve from doing it. As Jesus put it, we have only done our duty no matter how well we have done it (Luke 17:10).
Read Essay →What helped Jesus through the agony of the cross was concentrating on the good that lay beyond it: “For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and disregarded the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). Successfully negotiating that extreme experience qualified him to “sit down on the right hand of the throne of God.”
This concluding event in Christ’s ministry contains many other things that translate into similar circumstances we face daily. The joy of having a new little one helps through the process of bringing that baby into the world. Anxiety about a dental procedure or surgical experience connects with the realities these emblems renew in us each time we observe them in remembrance of him, of what he did, and how he managed to do it.
Read Essay →Early in Jesus’ ministry, he told the disciples he had go to Jerusalem and suffer a lot of things from the religious leaders and even be killed. That cloud hung over his entire ministry, but it was something he had to do, so he did it.
When we “come to the table,” we look back at his death and acknowledge the principle of fulfilling what is ours to do before God and other people. That is especially important when it comes to matters that only we are in a position to handle. Maybe it’s just that we are in a good place to take care of it. We don’t put it off or wait for somebody else to pick up the slack. We do our part.
Read Essay →Rejection by the masses, ridicule by religious leaders, abandonment by disciples, and suffering from the Romans combined in the culminating event of the Messiah’s earthly life. He made it through that horrible experience by appealing to resources outside himself: the angel that “ministered to him” in the Garden, prayer to the Father, commitment to the purpose inside of “your will, not mine” and looking to the future joy beyond the present pain.
Read Essay →The Lord’s Supper pictures Jesus reversing the downward spiral of deteriorating relationships. On the cross he lived out in the extreme his own commandment to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39).
People usually respond in kind—good for good, bad for bad. The pattern leads to deepening discord. Stopping evil comes from not responding at all, by letting it die from lack of attention. Reversing the pattern comes from responding to evil with good.
Read Essay →Each year offers a new beginning. On a smaller scale, each week at this table, these emblems remind us that the blood that saved us continues to cleanse us from sins (1 John 1:7). Those sins crop up as periodic failures to be what he has called us to be, shortcomings from what we have aspired to become.
That “cleansing” is not one and done, nor is it something that needs to be redone again and again. Rather, we experience ongoing relationship with the One who continues to forgive us as we continue to commit ourselves to him and his purposes in daily living.
Read Essay →God has given us a wide range of freedom in which to use our power of choice. We live within a broad arrow of options. As long as our choices fall within the limits of that arrow, we are moving along toward the Lord’s intended destiny for us. The garden in Genesis 2 pictures our circumstance before our Creator. Adam and Eve could eat the fruit from countless trees; they were to leave just one of them alone.
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 →Jesus told the twelve that no one could show greater love than by giving his life for his friends (John 15:13). The next day he demonstrated that point. We hear about people that have done such a thing; we may even know somebody like that—even someone who did it for us. Beyond such demonstrations of love, Jesus exhibited his attitude toward us by not calling the over 60,000 angels available to protect him (Matthew 26:53). That made his death for us more obviously voluntary and even more loving.
Read Essay →“He trusted in God; let him deliver him” (Matthew 27:43). This taunt highlights an unwitting compliment to Jesus. The religious leaders said it about him when he was on the cross.
There is no greater trust than agonizing in the face of death for the one you trust to deliver you. Here is an example of Christ’s taking every virtue and pushing it to the absolute. There is no better place to see the pattern than at his death. In that event, all previous virtues come to their highest expression.
Read Essay →The truth is, we need more than we can provide for ourselves, especially true in reconciling with others. The decisive matter is always the choice by the other to relent if we repent. We cannot control that, and for that reason we are greatly relieved and very appreciative when the other person willingly removes the barrier to our friendship.
What holds true for overcoming alienation with other people holds true for overcoming alienation with God. But there is, as well, a significant difference. In this case the offended party has taken the initiative; that does not usually happen between estranged people. But God broke pattern in our case and did so in the most amazing way imaginable. He sent his Son among us to call us back to him, and that Son was willing to go to the point of violent death to make it happen.
Read Essay →“We are partakers of Christ if we hold fast to the end.” We are if we will (Hebrews 3:6, 14). That is a way of saying that it does not do any good in the end if we don’t carry through to the end. Our final condition in God’s eyes determines how we end up. What went before whether bad or good does not figure into how things are with God in the forward-moving “now,” the “today” of our friendship with him. Some things may be measured on an average or how we were for some period of time—as in our reputation as an athlete because of how we did during our playing years.
Read Essay →Easter
We are meeting at the table, not to remember a dead founder but to acknowledge a living Lord. Were it not for what astounded us at dawn, we would have no reason to be here much less to take up these markers of a death last Friday.
“Dead Messiah” would be a contradiction of terms because “Messiah abides forever” (John 12:34). It is not an abiding like our Lord’s contemporaries expected. He would not live and rule forever on earth; he would abide forever by first dying and resurrecting to rule forever at God’s right hand with the promise of sending his Spirit to abide with us till he returns.
Read Essay →Jesus’ prayer in the Garden was answered, “No.” That answer reminds us that we do not serve God for what we can get out of it. Our needs are real; our requests are not selfish or bad. God simply says, “No”—not “if,” not “later,” not “if you do your part”—but, “no.”
This bread and wine identifies us with Jesus and his motives for serving God. We sacrifice final control of our lives because of who God is and for purposes that override our own preferences, needs, or physical life. That’s what we say here together.
Read Essay →These communion elements take us back to the hardest situation our Lord faced. Jesus could have prayed to the Father to send as many as 72,000 angels to protect him from this ordeal (Matthew 26:53). Instead, the Father sent him one angel to empower him with influence to deal with it (Luke 22:43).
God may not protect us either from the ordeals we face; but remembering our “older brother” here and the presence of the Spirit that’s always with us, is sufficient to empower us for times like that. The loaf and cup together draw us to that ideal because we are not above our Lord in such matters.
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 →We speak of giving people their due. Because of who they are, the responsibility they have, or what they have done, we respect and thank accordingly. Such responses acknowledge their identity, position, character, or benefit to us. As Paul says of government (Romans 13:5-7), we give honor, respect, and tribute as appropriate.
Today we have come to give Christ his due. Of all the things he did, voluntarily submitting to crucifixion stands out as his greatest moral achievement. Observing these emblems of body given and blood shed, we are putting ourselves in his position so we can appreciate what it meant for him to put himself in our place.
Read Essay →Christ’s cross serves as the ultimate symbol of temptation; his empty tomb nearby is a monument to conquered temptation.
Scripture says he was tempted in all the ways we are—and more, we might add—yet without failing (Hebrews 4:15). At the start of his ministry, he was tempted while hungry, thirsty, and weak. In the end of his ministry, he was tempted with excruciating pain. All the while meantime, he faced rejection, mockery, and betrayal.
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 →“He is our Peace” (Ephesians 2:14). Paul writes that comment in reference to overcoming the Jew-Gentile enmity. He is referring to the wall in the Jews’ temple complex that divided the Court of the Gentiles from the rest of the worship center. So to speak, Christ tore down that separator and that separation.
The need for peace applies to a wide range of divisions ancient and modern. Christ no longer moves among us bodily, but he has left the church to be the “body of Christ” in the world (Ephesians 4:12, etc.). It’s our role to avoid bringing new divisions into our communities, and to do what we can to overcome the ones at work and play that are already here.
Read Essay →We run life’s race, “looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2). He originated trust as our basis for sonship to God, and in himself he carried that approach to God to the highest level in faithful obedience to the Father. So he could say, “It’s finished” (John 19:30) both in that his mission was completed and that his faithfulness had reached that highest level.
“We don’t know him any longer after the flesh” (2 Corinthians 5:16), but he left behind these physical reminders of what he did when he was “in the flesh.” It remains for us to regard these emblems of his character and commitment demonstrated while incarnate, and to participate in this observance as a stimulus to our own service to God in this realm of living.
Read Essay →Almost as an aside, Paul tells the Thessalonians “not to get weary with well doing” (2 Thessalonians 3:13). His comment strikes at an important point in our endeavors: not to quit before we’re done. Sometimes without our knowing it, success lies just ahead if we keep at it a little longer.
Jesus spent more than three years traveling, teaching, healing, resisting temptation, and being rejected. The night and morning before his last afternoon, he was up all night being arrested, deserted, ridiculed, put through five trials, flogged, and crushed under a cross he was too weakened to carry to the site of his crucifixion.
Read Essay →Christ’s dying words: “It’s done.” The last thing someone says tends to carry added significance. Those words teach what it means to do God’s will: faithfulness to the end—perseverance. Practical living calls for carry-through because most things have little use if they are not finished.
That format holds true in social relations as well. How we conduct ourselves with each other is as relevant toward the end as it is at any time earlier. The way things were does not determine the way things are. Friendship with God is not an average of faithfulness figured over a lifetime; it’s a matter of how things are at the moment—especially at the moment of the end.
Read Essay →A servant does not rank above his master, so we are to adopt his pattern of letting go of rights and privileges to help those in need like he did. As a result, exaltation comes from outside us rather than from self-advancement. That approach avoids the negatives that come from using competition to achieve prominence and self-esteem.
As we observe these emblems, we identify with Christ and consequently with the mentality he demonstrated in giving up the free exercise of his rights as deity. Likewise, we do not give up who we are when we serve others. Instead, we gain a sense of satisfaction, we receive honor from those we’ve helped, we experience exaltation from God for exhibiting the attitude of his Son.
Read Essay →One act, so many things to learn from it.
We’ve known people that would not take an entry-level job and earn their way up to higher rank and better pay. They wanted to start high for top dollar. Why was that?
Whatever the reason, we recognize it as weakness. Jesus demonstrated what it means to have inner strength that is not tied to position and circumstance. He gave up being equal with God, became a man, and carried his humility to the point of “enduring the cross.” He prioritized accomplishing a purpose over occupying a position.
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 →Jesus did not fight back when the temple guard came to arrest him in the Garden. That would have sent the wrong message. To his own detriment, he considered what he stood for more important than fleeing or protecting himself. He chose to suffer the consequences than cause his attackers or his disciples to misunderstand and act accordingly.
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where our kids or friends could misread our blameless acts. We deem it advisable to forgo rights than risk the consequences of unnecessary misunderstanding. As with such choices, there is consolation in knowing that Christ himself dealt with such dilemmas to his own hurt.
Read Essay →The bread and fruit of the vine are more than what they picture. They represent something that leads to what comes back on us to empower us for whatever lies between now and the coming joy. We can run steadfastly the race that is set before us because we are looking here to “Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2a). “For the joy that was set before him at the right hand of the Father, he endured the cross and disregarded the shame” (12:2b).
Read Essay →Ancient works of art deteriorate over time. Colors fade, and their beauty is subdued in the process. A skilled technician can restore them to their original beauty by cleaning away the dirt to enhance the pigment in the painting.
Taking part in this supper has something of the same effect as restoring a work of art. The fading memory of Christ’s ancient portrait of self-giving brightens again in these emblems of body and blood. We see afresh what it means to care.
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 →We are probably willing to help good people with something they need. Even for a person that is not so good, we might go out of our way to lend a hand. If need be, for someone especially good we may even be willing to give our life—for a son, a mother, a close friend. But for a bad person, would we be willing to go that far? Would it be worth it? What sense would it make? Yet that’s exactly what Christ did for us. He did not come so much to call good people, but sinners, to repentance (Matthew 9:13b).
Read Essay →The conclusion of one thing can become the beginning of something further. Looking back at what has happened lays the groundwork for what should come. Christ’s death to sin was not the end of the matter; it led to the end of the matter: his living to God.
Our baptism into his death is not the end of the matter either; it leads to living to God. The Lord’s Supper looks two ways at once—back to what happened and forward to what is to happen when “sin is washed away.”
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 →Even when we are trying to “do the right thing,” ignorance gets us into mistakes and sins that range from minor to major. The Proverbial writer noted long ago, “There’s a way that seems right, but it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).
Jesus’ amazing words on the cross were, “Forgive them, Father; they don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34). In the early days of the church, Peter told the Jewish crowd, “You killed the Prince of life. . . . I know you did it in ignorance as did your rulers” (Acts 3:14, 17). Much later Paul, the “chief of sinners,” told Timothy, “I received forgiveness because I did it ignorantly in disbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13).
Read Essay →In the process of receiving the Ten Commandments, Moses asked to see God’s glory. God responded, “You cannot see my face because people cannot see me and live” (Exodus 32:20). We might take the comment in two ways. Does it mean we cannot see God while we are alive, or does it warn that seeing God would kill us? Some of the ancients seem to have had this belief (Genesis 32:30; Judges 6:22-23; 13:21-22). The less extreme meaning equals Paul’s comment that in the next stage of existence we will see God “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12), or as John puts it, “We will be like him and see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
Read Essay →What we are about to do here is serious. It is a memorial act remembering a person, to be sure, but more specifically remembering a specific thing the person did. His life culminated in crucifixion. That is why we have the kind of elements we’re using.
Even more, we are entering into that experience as something we do. Previously Jesus had said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” We are putting the weight of a cross on our shoulders and following him uphill. That is something serious for us to be doing.
Read Essay →Jesus had a short time to accomplish what he came to do for all of history. He lived but thirty-three years and ministered only three years or so. The records of that work focus on the final week before his death. Under such time restraints, he needed to concentrate on what was most important, on what could generate solutions to other needs in the human condition.
He centered his work on reconciling broken relationships, first with God and then between people. Reconciliation is the closest thing to a cure-all for the world’s ills. And he gave his life to that end. Finances, health, social welfare, psychological peace, and the like are, in turn, corrected or at least greatly helped by getting rid of estrangement between people and the behaviors that cause it.
Read Essay →Resisting temptation is as much a part of life as “doing the right thing.” Jesus did not call the more than 60,000 angels available to him to disperse the mob in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:23). He could “even now” ask the Father to send them, having already prayed earnestly three times to the Father not to let him get crucified.
He did not use any personal powers to drive his attackers away. John 18:6 does indicate that “they drew back and fell to the ground” when he confirmed that he was the One they were looking for. Interesting!
Read Essay →We remember so we can be grateful. Most of life moves along in ordinary fashion, following everyday routines, consisting of normal things. But occasionally something special, something different, something particularly important happens. That is what stands out in our memories.
In human history Christ’s life stands out as singularly different, and the closing act of his ministry stands out as the most extreme demonstration of what characterized all his ministry. What he did is admirable; so we honor him for it. What he did, he did for us; so we thank him for it.
Read Essay →We are grateful for love. When we experience it, we become part of something eternal. There are not many things like that, and it resides in the highest realm as well as here. So the greatest of all experiences is this all-inclusive virtue.
Even before the foundation of the world—even before we existed, God loved us and in his mind’s eye gave his Son for us, fulfilling that love in due time, commending his love toward us. Maybe for a good person someone would go out of his way to do something good; maybe he would even give his own life, but God gave his Son’s life on a cross for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:7-11).
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 →“For the joy that was set before him, Jesus endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). Among the host of things scripture teaches us is how to deal with adversity. One mechanism for coping is remembering that “this too shall pass,” and even more that future good awaits us when we endure hard things meantime.
We carry in our hands emblems of his hands, representations of his life poured out for us as an example to us. Taking these elements into ourselves visually portrays a valuable lesson learned and makes tribute to the Teacher who demonstrated the truth we profit from.
Read Essay →What would you do if you had only one good thing you could do? You would probably want it to help as many people as it could. You would want it to be as beneficial, as long-lasting, as far-reaching as possible. If you had the chance, you would choose something that people could not get some other way. You would go beyond what they wanted and accomplish something they needed more than anything else.
Read Essay →There is more than one way to mess up when we are dealing with people. We can be unaware that what we have done is harmful or offensive. We can fail to do what we know we should but forget to take care of it or not consider it important enough to worry about. In selfish moments, we know better but don’t care enough to restrain our impulses. We call them sins of ignorance, sins of omission, sins of commission. They are alike in their negative effects and our need to do what we can to reverse their effects.
Read Essay →The greatest gift is the gift of yourself. The most extreme example of it we are remembering here at this table: it is unforgettable.
We use the cross of Jesus as an ornament on our jewelry. The image has become an architectural feature on our buildings. It took Jesus’ self-giving to transform the ugliness of the cross into something beautiful. It took what he did to transform the dreaded cross into a welcome means of reconciliation by love for alienated people.
Read Essay →The guilt feeling is the most uncomfortable feeling we can have. That is evident from all the things we do to avoid that “pain”: hiding it from others, denial to ourselves (repression) and to others (lying), blaming someone else or something else (projection), withdrawing from the offended and from others that are aware of our actions (separation), hardening ourselves (desensitizing), keeping our mind off of it (busyness, masking, substitution), laughing it off (minimizing it), defining sin out of existence (no standard, no breach of standard, no guilt).
Read Essay →The most important issues call for the most attention. The biggest difficulties call for the most adequate solutions. The hardest problems call for the most extreme measures. In observing these elements, we note that the most important issue and the hardest problem are one and the same.
Our Lord bypassed ruling the world, thereby choosing the cross instead. That shows what he considered most important, the biggest difficulty, the hardest problem. At the same time, it shows how much God is concerned about our friendship with him and each other. Overcoming alienation is an appropriate purpose of love. Since alienation comes from behavior that’s not appropriate to relationships, getting rid of the sin is the main thing in the world.
Read Essay →“Two points determine a straight line,” we say. That image serves us today in this communal remembrance.
The event we remember here sets the direction for conducting life from here on. What values we remember from Christ’s life and death, we carry forward in our own living. The purpose he gave his life for and we identified with in baptism, we pledge to follow through on from this day forward. Today we chart our course on the difficult, narrow way. For him the straight and narrow road led to Golgotha.
Read Essay →The greatest responsibility goes to the most capable person. The hardest work leads to the highest honor. Those superlatives come together at this table. God could not assign Christ’s role to just anyone, because it had such widespread importance; there could be no risk of failure. No one else qualified.
We acknowledge here that we’re benefactors of special greatness. He took the perfect life and produced a perfect life in the human condition. He took life in the human condition and produced a perfect life in the face of the worst opposition. So it’s no off-handed sign of appreciation that we give a nod to on our way to other things. It’s a focal point of worship, a culmination of prepared hearts and minds and wills.
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 →The accounts of institution say that Jesus took a loaf and a cup and blessed them; they were two elements present at the Passover meal. That was the occasion on which Jesus instituted this memorial of his upcoming crucifixion.
The connection between communion and Passover draws attention to a singular point about Jesus’ life and death. His body and blood given for us in crucifixion correspond to the Passover lamb sacrificed at this time. Jesus’ death is to the Christian system what the paschal sacrifice was to the Mosaic system: they had to do with getting rid of sin.
Read Essay →The Passover lamb foreshadowed the real thing: “The Lamb of God that takes away the sin that is in the world” (John 1:29). By analogy, that Passover lamb offered on an altar was to be without blemish (Exodus 12:5) like what it foreshadowed sacrificed on a cross.
These emblems represent Christ’s final demonstration of unblemished righteousness that laid the foundation for our righteousness. His life’s consummation on the cross epitomized his whole life of righteousness. We are remembering here his willing death by crucifixion as The Great Demonstration. Love could not have a greater expression. Our whole life, too, needs to carry forward what this loaf and cup represent.
Read Essay →“He is our peace. He has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh the Law comprised of commandments and ordinances so he could create in himself one new united mankind, making peace, and might reconcile both of us to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end” (Ephesians 2:14-16).
Paul is dealing particularly with the peace that comes from uniting Gentiles and Jews into one body of Christ (cp. 3:4-6). That was accomplished by connecting them with the same One and his most outstanding act among us. It’s reconciling people alienated from each other and from the One who makes us one by uniting us with him.
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 →Truth is reality, and grace identifies the kind of reality Messiah brought for us to embody. “Law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Messiah” (John 1:17). The point is not that the Law was false but that it was not the real thing; it drew a picture of the real thing, approximated it, prepared for its real expression in us: relationship to God and each other based on grace.
Read Essay →Christ’s death for sin is a prelude to his resurrection for justification (Romans 4:25). His crucifixion established his righteousness to the uttermost; his resurrection established his legitimacy beyond a doubt as the Messiah who abides forever (John 12:34).
Our Lord’s death and resurrection represent two halves of the same whole. His resurrection from the tomb confirms the meaning of his death on the cross for us already and promises the hope of our own resurrection to come.
Read Essay →Coming to the table connects us with the one event that reaches out in all directions in time and territory—present, past, and future; here, there, and everywhere. Christ’s culminating act of his ministry laid the basis for all salvation—under the Mosaic covenant (Hebrews 9:15), during the patriarchal age (1 Peter 4:6; 3:18-21), and henceforth to the Lord’s return (Matthew 28:18-20). He made possible the restored friendship with God and all people irrespective of race or status (Galatians 3:28).
Read Essay →Colossians 3:1 speaks of Christ seated on the right hand of God’s throne. Jesus himself pictured the path to life for us on earth as narrow, passing through the “strait” gate, a path that few seem to find. In his own case, the narrow path was also an uphill climb that led through calvary, the empty tomb through the ascension above the clouds to the right hand of the Father.
Read Essay →The church is called the body of Christ in part because the church continues Christ’s operation in the world. The church is to the world now what Christ incarnate was when he walked here (1 Corinthians 3:9-17).
Likewise, the word of God written is comparable to the Word of God alive among us. The words of scripture point to events that occurred before the very eyes of Christ’s first witnesses (2 Peter 1:12-21).
Read Essay →“As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). “His death” and “till he comes” form a striking combination made possible by his resurrection.
This symbolic meal does not so much rekindle the sad memory of a past tragedy as it lights up a glad reminder of its circumstances. Since everyone dies, his death would not be so notable were it not for the righteousness he brought to a criminal’s cross, the love for us he demonstrated in going through with it, and the triumph over the grave that followed. Those features of “his death” make it especially worth proclaiming “till he comes.”
Read Essay →“Today” is a word from Jesus on the cross. He said it to one of the two insurrectionists the soldiers had crucified with him. The one he was talking to had evidently taken part in yet another attempt to overthrow Roman rule in Israel. He likely had the typical Jewish expectancy that Messiah would liberate his nation.
Earlier he joined the other criminal in taunting Jesus to bring the three of them down from their crosses. Now he has had a change of heart as death drew nearer and darkness at midday settled in. He acknowledged that Jesus had not done anything wrong, and that they deserved to die for their actions: admission and repentance.
Read Essay →Do you ever wonder whether somebody loves you? Do your parents care about you? What about your children? Do you think your husband, your wife, still loves you? What do your friends say that makes you confident that they care? Do your neighbors and fellow workers and church members do things that let you know how they regard you? Does it cross your mind that they may not mean it?
Read Essay →This observance reminds us of what can happen when we do not conform to the world’s expectations. Death is the most extreme consequence that might happen, so we can use this occasion together to resolve not to waffle should something demanding present itself to us. Christ calls us to transform our values and purposes, attitudes and motives, from what characterizes a world governed by materialistic, humanistic thinking.
For the most part, we face lesser consequences, things like exclusion from the group or social rejection or losing our jobs, foreclosing on our houses. These more everyday consequences can take their toll on us to cave in to neighbors and friends and even family, and to compromise convictions to gain their acceptance in place of persecution for not conforming. We have to transform in order not to conform.
Read Essay →Scripture calls Jesus the Word of God. In this service, we hear what he is saying to us. We refresh the priceless truth as we contemplate not just the words of institution, but the Person who speaks in them.
What he did demonstrated what he stood for, so that his word to us was not in wisdom but in power. Example is the simplest form of teaching; imitation is the simplest form of learning. This ordinance speaks to us; it draws us into the presence of him with whom we have to do in our time in this place.
Read Essay →At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus made a choice that led to what we are remembering today. Satan offered him leadership over all the kingdoms of the world if he would yield to Satan’s direction over his life and work. Jesus chose not to accept that offer.
Giving him worldwide dominion would have given him the very thing Jewish people were so desperately expecting their Messiah to have. If he had agreed to that role, contemporary Israelis would have accepted him. He would not have faced the cross, either because they would not have rejected him or because he would have used his power to repel any opposition foreign or domestic.
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).
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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