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COME TO THE TABLE

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COME TO THE TABLE

“‘I AM the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died… But here is the bread that comes down from heaven which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.’

“The Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?'” John 6:48-52 (NIV).

Jesus’ words sound bizarre, don’t they? What in the world is He talking about and how can He expect His hearers to believe what He is saying?

Once more a literal interpretation of His words leaves us with the idea that He is advocating cannibalism! However, we know that He cannot possibly imply that, so what is He saying?

We have to turn again to the Hebrew way of thinking. Where the “western” Greek-orientated mind-set is to interpret His words literally, the ancient Hebrew mind would recognize something different in His meaning.

Middle-eastern people were very hospitable but they never ate with anyone with whom they had issues. To eat with someone meant much more than sitting down together and sharing a meal. They only ate a meal with someone with whom they were reconciled.

This practice arose from the origin of the ancient concept of a table. The Paleo-Hebrew word for a table – shulkan – was also the word for reconcile and lamb skin, depending on the sense in which it was used. The connection between these meanings was like this: where there was no table available, for example, when they left Egypt in haste and they had to eat the Passover meal in readiness to leave, the skin of the lamb that was eaten at the Passover was used as a “table”, a sort-of picnic blanket.

The members of the family had to eat a sacrificed lamb as a symbol that they had set aside their differences and were one with each other. They could not travel together on a long journey if they had issues. Hence a meal – shul – was eaten at the table – shulkan– as a symbol of reconciliation – shulkan.

Was Jesus inviting the people to be reconciled to God through His flesh? It sounds very much as though this was what He was getting at. There is certainly no hint that He was implying that, in some mystical way, the bread eaten and the wine drunk at the Last Supper literally became His body and blood. That would make Him the advocate of cannibalism which is unthinkable.

The idea that He is sacrificed again and again every time we eat the Lord’s Supper also denies the clear teaching of Scripture that His death was a once-for-all, never-to-be-repeated, all-sufficient sacrifice which reconciled us to the Father. To insist that, every time we participate in the memorial feast of “Communion” or the Lord’s Supper, we are re-sacrificing the Son of God and eating His actual flesh and drinking His actual blood is to turn it into a satanic ritual rather than a symbol of what He did on the cross for us.

“Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.'” John 6:53-55 (NIV).

When we read His words with the understanding that He was talking about reconciliation, not cannibalism, they make a whole lot of sense. To be reconciled to the Father through the sacrifice of His Son brings us back into union with the source of life. Physical death cannot separate us from Him because He has conquered death. Just as bread sustains and energizes our physical bodies, so also, as we “feed” on Him, our spirits are nourished, and our life in Him grows.

Jesus was not instituting a new, cannibalistic religion, but teaching God’s people that the sacrificial lamb they ate when they celebrated the Passover was only a picture of what He would do on the cross. His death would bring them back into fellowship with the Father and reconnect them with the source of life.

Do you have this life?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – CHANGE YOUR AWARENESS

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CHANGE YOUR AWARENESS

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:9-15

There is something of great significance in this story – three phases:

  1. Jesus spent the first thirty years of His life just being the Son; He lived in anonymity and obscurity in a Galilean village in northern Israel. He said and did nothing that was recorded except one incident recorded by Luke when He was twelve, giving us a clue to the bent of His life. At the end of those thirty years, on the eve of His public ministry, He received an audible verbal affirmation of His Father’s approval, and the visible descent of the third person of the Trinity upon Him. Both of these manifestations were assurances of God’s presence in a way a human being could understand.
  2. He was compelled into circumstances by the Holy Spirit that would test His humanity to the limit, both natural and supernatural. Trust in God is not established in ideal circumstances but in any circumstances. The awareness of God’s presence had to be cultivated in every possible human situation. There was no need for Jesus to withdraw to some ideal environment, or have everything in His life running smoothly to be aware of God. Feeling and awareness are not the same thing. Awareness has nothing to do with emotion. It has to do with conviction and response.
  3. Jesus’ announcement, “God is here,” was based on the absolute certainty of who God is, and on the experience and reassurance of God’s presence across the whole spectrum of human circumstances. He could pass on that good news to everyone around Him because He had experienced it for Himself. It was more than a doctrine. It was a conviction.

This awareness changes the whole flavour of our lives. We don’t have to change what we are doing. We need to be aware of in whose presence we are doing what we are doing; learning to do life in God. We need to cultivate that awareness as a process that will never come to an end. This one simple truth changes everything. “God is here!” Relax, rest, shalom. God is here!

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – HE UNDERSTOOD

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HE UNDERSTOOD

“After John’s messengers left to make their report, Jesus said more about John to the crowd of people. ’What did you expect when you went out to see him in the wild? A weekend camper? Hardly. What then? A sheik in silk pyjamas? Not in the wilderness, not by a long shot. What then? A messenger from God? That’s right, a messenger! Probably the greatest messenger you’ll ever hear. He is the messenger Malachi announced when he wrote, “I’m sending my messenger on ahead to make the road smooth for you.”‘ Luke 7:24-27.

Why this vehement defense of John the Baptist?

John had just publicly revealed his vulnerability in his extreme circumstances. It was Jesus’ turn to set the record straight, not only to defend John but also to save his ministry.

John was God’s appointed forerunner of the Messiah, the one foretold by Malachi four hundred years before. He had come, as predicted, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to announce and prepare for the coming of the Messiah. People had flocked to hear him in the wilderness. They had received his message that the Messiah was on the brink of being revealed to them. Perhaps some had even been present when Jesus was baptised and had heard the Father’s affirmation of His Son.

Now John was wavering and who can blame him? The all-powerful Messiah had not lifted a finger to rescue him in his predicament. Perhaps John did not realise that his work was done, short though it had been, and it was time for him to step aside and allow Jesus to stand in the limelight for a season until He, too, stepped aside when His work was complete.

Jesus did not want the crowd to think that John was undoing all he had said and done by wavering in his conviction that He was the Messiah. Turning to the Scriptures, He demonstrated to John’s followers that He fulfilled everything the Scriptures had said about Him to that point. His own circumstances aside, John had to believe that Jesus was all that John had reported Him to be.

But Jesus was not only protecting John’s ministry, He was also protecting John himself. This temporary lapse in John’s conviction, this wobble in his faith, was not who John was. In his weak moment, Jesus was there for him and quick to point out that he was no fly-by-night, self-appointed prophet. God had foretold his coming through His messenger centuries before just as surely as He had prophesied the coming of His Messiah.

In glowing terms Jesus began to correct any misgivings people the crowd might have had about John. John was no holiday maker or member of the idle rich, on public display for their entertainment. He was a messenger sent from God, whose arrival was foretold in the Scriptures as surely as that of the Messiah. The implication was that the people had better heed what John had preached. It was serious business and, even though John was shaky in his faith right then, his doubts did not cancel out who he was and what he had done before his incarceration.

Don’t you love Jesus for this little interlude? It reveals His heart once again. A lesser person might have criticised John for vacillating in his circumstances, but not Jesus. No matter how weak he was right then, his work remained and Jesus acknowledged that.

This should give us the courage to know that God is tender towards us in our struggles. He does not judge the process through which we have to go to reach our conclusions. How many times we have been where John was, only to emerge stronger and more secure in our confidence in God because God sees the whole picture and accompanies us to a place of greater strength.

So don’t give up. Jesus will never stab you in the back. He will walk with you through the valley until you reach the other side.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – UNTESTED!

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CHAPTER FOUR

UNTESTED!

“When Jesus entered public life He was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph…son of Adam, son of God.”

“Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days He was tested by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up, He was hungry.” Luke 3:23-4:2.

I don’t know about you, but as I read Luke’s story, I am struck by the sober, down-to-earth way in which he reported the results of his investigation. There was nothing fanciful or imaginative about the details of his story. He was writing about things that happened.

At the age of thirty Jesus was eligible to enter the priesthood. But wait a minute. He was neither a Levite nor the son of a priest. He was from the tribe of Judah and His father was a carpenter and a builder. He had no earthly claim to priesthood.

But He had a connection with God the Father which overrode His human connections. As a twelve-year-old boy, He was already aware of His role as a Son, which took precedence over His obligation to be under the authority of Joseph and Mary. At the age of thirty He stepped into public view at the Jordan River to take up His office as high priest, not in the order of Levi but in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:20; 7:15).

He was baptised in the River Jordan by John; baptised into humanity, baptised into John’s ministry and baptised into His high priesthood. After He was anointed by the Spirit and affirmed by the Father, He left the Jordan and made His way into the wilderness to be alone for a while. He had the connection with His Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. Now He needed the strategy for the huge mission that lay ahead of Him.

Satan needed no invitation to join Him! He was there, hovering in the background and waiting to pounce at every opportunity. And that was just what the Holy Spirit wanted him to do. The devil was playing right into God’s hands! If Jesus was to “get” God’s modus operandi, Satan would help Him to understand what it was not. Get rid of the alternatives and the right way would become crystal clear.

At this point in His life Jesus was untested. He had passed the test of infancy, boyhood and youth with flying colours and affirmed by the Father – “You are my Son in whom I am well pleased,” but, from now on it would be a whole new ball game. He was stepping onto the battlefield, and it would be a fight to the death, not just the death of His physical body but either His own death if He went the way Adam went (He was fulfilling the role of the “last Adam”), or the death of His adversary if He consistently lived as a true son.

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:7-10.

What was the “death” this passage is talking about? If it refers to physical death, then it is not telling the truth. Was Jesus saved from physical death? No. But He was saved from eternal death because of His “reverent submission”. Does that mean that by becoming a man, Jesus risked eternal separation from God if He stepped out of line like Adam did? It surely does, otherwise He would not have been qualified to be the perfect lamb that took our place on the cross.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet He did not sin” Hebrews 4:15 (NIV).

Tested!

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TESTED!

At once the Spirit sent Him out into the wilderness, and He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended Him. (Mark 1:12-13).

Mark’s version of this phase of Jesus’ training to be a son is quite sketchy. He gives no details about this event and yet, according to Matthew and Luke, it was a significant encounter with His arch enemy and one that would set the direction of His mission to reveal the Father as the perfect Son from here on.

He had always lived in fellowship with and obedience to the Father from birth even in an obscure village in Galilee as the son of a peasant carpenter. The Father testified to this at His baptism. But from now on, He would be facing the enemy head on, living in a fish bowl in the public eye, and open to public scrutiny from both supporters and enemies.

The success of His mission depended on declaring and demonstrating who He was – not the son of Joseph and Mary but the Son of God. He came as an accurate representative of the Father to reveal the true nature of their God to His people who had lost their way over centuries of rebellion, punishment and the influences of the surrounding nations.

It was time for them to know who their God was and to return to Him in repentance and trust. Jesus came to show them the way and to pave the way by removing sin and reconciling them to the Father. But how was He to do this? Before He ever opened His mouth to proclaim the good news that God was still in charge and that He had sent His Son to bring them back to Himself,  He had to be sure of His modus operandi. How was He going to convince the people of His identity?

The Holy Spirit had a bold plan. He didn’t send Him into the wilderness to study in a “Holy Spirit School” for forty days. Instead, He let the devil loose on Him just as He had done to His people centuries before when they came out of Egypt. As God’s “son” they had to endure the inhospitable and dangerous environment of Arabia as their classroom in their “school of learning to trust God” for forty years. Jesus must be put through His paces in the equally inhospitable wilderness for forty days.

Isn’t this a rather drastic way to further His education? Why not just sit Him down and give Him some guidelines for conducting His public ministry? No, that was too easy. He had to thrash out His trust in and loyalty to the Father in the “school of experience.” We have to turn to Matthew and Luke for the details of this clash. What was the devil’s plan? To get Him to cut loose from the Father just as he had lured Adam and Eve to do.

Three subtle suggestions – one goal; break the unity between the Son and His Father by getting Him to go it alone. After all, if He was who He said He was, the Son of God, did He not have the authority and power to act as God? If He was hungry, could He not just do a little magic like turning stones into bread? No one would notice and that would deal with His immediate need. It was just a small thing, really – like eating a bit of forbidden fruit.

“No way!” Jesus retorted. “It’s much bigger than you are suggesting. If I did what you are telling me, I would be putting myself under your authority and that is unthinkable.”

“What about getting God to do what you want? Jump and let the people watch a miracle.  After all, didn’t He promise to send His angels to guard you when you fall?”

Jesus saw through that one as well. “Are you crazy? I live under the authority of God’s word. I don’t use it to get my way.”

“Okay, so why don’t you just bow down to me? No one will see you and you can have the whole world without a fight.”

Jesus was adamant. “Get lost, devil! Who do you think you are – God? I will never put myself under your authority. I know who I am and nothing will change that.”

Round one – Jesus, one; Satan, nil. When He left the wilderness, He knew like never before who He was and how He was going to beat the devil. He would trust and obey the Father, no matter what. That’s what sons do.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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