Kingdom Communion (part 1)

As promised, here are the guts of what I shared with the church on Sunday (more to come):

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

 

What is Kingdom Communion?

PASSOVER.  So often in the church “communion” can be a cracker and juice experience, kind of on the side of things.  But the bread and wine were originally part of a much bigger story.  The first “communion” meal, the “Last Supper” that Jesus shared with his disciples, was in fact a celebration of the Jewish Passover.  Jesus was a Jew, and so were His first followers. And they were doing Passover.

What they were celebrating was God’s rescue of His people from slavery in Egypt.  (Many of us know the story, but it is often not emphasized in our churches, at least in my expereince.  See Exodus 12.)  God told Pharaoh to let His people go, and Pharaoh said NO.  The final plague was coming: death to all the first born of Egypt.  But Moses told the people to slay a lamb and smear the blood on the doorposts of their houses… and when the plague came, that judgment would “pass over” them.  The end result was that the Israelites got freed from their slavery; and the rest (as they say) is history.

In the same way, what we celebrate in Communion is our rescue from the bondage of sin, and those that have the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, over them will be spared the judgment of God.  What Jesus was doing and saying in this meal was radical… provocative… and even dangerous.  He took the unleavened bread (already a part of the Feast) and broke it and said, “Hey, this is Me… and do it in remembrance of Me.  No, not in remembrance of Exodus 12 and the Passover… but in remembrance of Me.”  Seriously, Jesus?!?!

And then after supper, Jesus took the so-called “cup of redemption” (one of several cups of wine used in the feast) and said, “Hey, this is Me.  This is the new agreement (covenant) between God and humanity in MY blood… and do it in remembrance of (yep, you guessed it) ME.  Not in remembrance of that passover lamb who was killed and whose blood was poured out to smear on the door frame.  No, do it in remembrance of ME and MY blood that I am pouring out for you, and your rescue, and your forgivness.”  Seriously?!?!  This is the kind of truly off the freakin’ chain stuff that made the religious leaders of the day want to kill Jesus.  (And so they did.)

So when we take communion, remember that it’s really the Passover that you’re celebrating– drawing on all the weight and import and significance of that event– but not the old covenant Passover.  We celebate the new covenant Passover through Messiah Jesus, the Lamb of God.

Hanukkah!

Hanukkah began at sundown on Tuesday night (Kislev 25) and runs for eight days. This is a feast that is fitting for all believers in the One True God to celebrate, a celebration of God’s miraculous intervention!! Jesus Himself celebrated this “Festival of Lights” in his time on earth, and the Gospel of John mentions it on John 10:22. In this season of Advent, when we prepare for the coming of Jesus and are reminded of the darkness of the world before His coming — who is Himself the Light of the world (John 1:4-5; 8:12)– celebrating or at least appreciating Hanukkah is ultimately a celebration of Messiah Jesus, who came shining brightly in His incarnation!

(Check out the apocryphal books of Maccabees (e.g. 1 Mac. 4:56-59; 2 Mac. 10:5-6) for the whole story… and remember that these books can have value to us even if not on the par with the rest of the canon of scripture… no time now to hash through that issue!)

Happy Hanukkah!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah

Yom Kippur!

Yom Kippur starts this evening and runs through tomorrow evening. It is the most solemn and holy day of the Jewish year, and is a day that Messiah Jesus would have celebrated with his community in his time on earth. Yom Kippur ends the “10 Days of Awe” (Yamim Noraim) which start with Rosh Hashanah and go through this day; the “10 days” are a season of reflection, introspection, and repentance in preparation for Yom Kippur. Taken together they form the “High Holy Days.” Scripture says to observe the Day of Atonement on the 10th day of the seventh month (Tishri), a day of fasting and absolutely no work.

As I mentioned in my post about Rosh Hashanah, all the Jewish feasts of the year are a part of our spiritual heritage, a part of our “church history,” if you will. The other extremely nifty thing I want to explore, as I do more and more of these posts on the Feasts, is that Christ Jesus is foreshadowed and proclaimed in each one! Perhaps never more clearly than in Yom Kippur!

Read Leviticus 23: 26-32, Leviticus 16: 1-34, and Numbers 29:7-11 thoroughly, and then you can understand Hebrews 9:11-10:18. Under the Old (I am preferring “First” lately) Covenant, the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) would enter the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle (or temple) only once a year to make atonement for his own sins and for the sins of all the people. He carried the blood of a bull (for his own sins) and of a goat (for the people) into the Holy of Holies and performed a complicated ritual to ensure this atonement. Later another ritual occurred where the Kohen Gadol would lay hands on the head of a live goat (the azazel, the “scape goat”), confess the sins of the people over it, and then send it off into the desert to die. (In temple times in Jerusalem, they would actually lead the goat off a cliff!) Well, the human high priest had to do this each and every year (and Jews go through a non-sacrificial process still since there is no standing temple) to secure the atonement of the people.

Then comes Messiah! He brings the New (“Second”) Covenant, and brings his own blood into the true Holy of Holies, and secures forgiveness and atonement once and for all: “but now he (Christ) has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgement, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people” (Hebrews 9:26b-28a). By his ONE sacrifice, Jesus has “made perfect forever those who are being made holy… and where these (sins) have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin” (Hebrews 10:14-18). Wahoo!!

So what’s the point? The point is that as children of Abraham and followers of the Messiah, we can embrace and partake of the Feasts of Israel, and in fullness because Christ has completely fulfilled all that the Day of Atonement has always meant! While it is a good thing to be somber, to fast, and to use the Yamim Noraim and the day of Yom Kippur as days of reflection and repentance for our sins against God and against people– though complete atonement has been made we still are in that process of “being made holy,” and we sure still have things for which we need to repent– we may also observe these High Holidays as a time of celebration, because the sacrifice has been fully made and we can live in the freedom of Messiah and not under the power of sin! We are free to “serve the living God” (Hebrews 9: 14)!! We who believe in Messiah Jesus DO have our names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life!!

May you find this Yom Kippur as a day to reflect and repent of your sins, and a day to celebrate the fullness of God’s abundant grace and forgiveness in Jesus!!

La shanah tova!!

UPDATE 12: Rosh Hashanah!!

Shana Tova! (A good year!) Yep, today is the day! In honor of our wonderful Jewish roots and our wonderful Messiah, I am celebrating and seeking the Lord today in Rosh Hashanah. And God seems to be speaking some interesting things…

As for me, I am still out of work and I’ve been getting some good prayer this week for that from some folks at church. One brother prayed over me on Tuesday night that God would open a “new door” for me, “even this week,” and he prayed that about three times. I had started reading about Rosh Hashanah earlier that day. Then last night at home group people prayed that God would give me a “good job” (i.e. not just “a job”) that would be good for me, good for my family, and good financially. Meanwhile, Tracy has been really struggling with her job, really dissatisfied with it in many ways, and ultimately not feeling fulfilled. What does all this have to do with the Jewish New Year?

The significance of this “new year” in biblical times was that it heralded the end of the harvest, and the beginning of the rainy season, and the planting of new crops. It was time of high celebration but also of reflection and solemnity. Originally called the “Feast of trumpets” it was kicked off with blasting the shofar and taking a day of rest, among other things (see Leviticus 23:23-25; Numbers 29:1-6). The special day was and is today, the first day of the 7th month, Tishri (which actually started at twilight yesterday and goes to twilight tonight). Other things I have learned about Rosh Hashanah:

• Philo wrote that the blowing of the trumpets on this day was a memorial of the giving of the Torah and a reminder of God’s benefits to humanity in general.
• The Mishnah describes it as a “day of judgment” (along with three other feast days) when all men will pass before God.
• The Talmud describes Rosh Hashanah as the most important of these judgement days, when all will pass before God as sheep pass in front of a shepherd for examination. It is also said in the Talmud that on Rosh Hashanah “the means of sustenance of every person are apportioned for the ensuing year; so also are his destined losses” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah). Things that make you go hmmmmmm….

Now I’m not Jewish (but my father Abraham was), and I’m not bound in any way by Jewish oral tradition (nor, in fact, is God), but in celebrating the fullness of my faith in the One True God, I’m getting a hint that maybe God is up to something special this week in my life, on this “new year’s” day. Could it be that God is doing something new? A new beginning? That He is setting aside what my “means of sustenance” are for this coming year? Umm, I don’t know, but it is encouraging to hear God’s voice of encouragement and to celebrate Him in a wonderful day that He appointed in ancient times.

May the God of Israel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, bless us with new beginning and provisions in this day and this new year!! And may He bless you all, my friends and family, those dear to me, that He may find us all righteous in Yeshua and our names in the Lamb’s Book of Life!!

La shanah tova tikatevu!!
(May your name be inscribed for a good year!!)