Revisiting the Lord's Supper Part 5

[HKHaugan]

Revisiting the Lord’s Supper  Part 5 

We’ve been through the contexts in which Jesus lived and they are the same as those in which we live.  We have a physical location that is limited by our bodies in a time, a place and relationships.  That’s why we need spiritual feeding.  That feeding is the Word and in that Word is the Lord’s Supper vividly proclaimed in the four Gospels and staunchly reverenced and considered essential by Paul (1Cor.11:17-34).  It is one of the four pillars identifying the early church (Acts 2:42).  Therefore, Jesus taught it with purpose.  We each have a history and a lifestyle.  Our history needs forgiving and our lifestyle needs spiritual grounding and feeding.  Jesus made Himself available in those identical contexts to show how they were made to have intimacy with God and one another, Him being the design and the Holy Spirit the enabler.  We need to be fed, spiritually fed.  The whole of our personal existence is made alive spiritually and understood in a relationship with Jesus as first our Savior, then as our ongoing Lord.  Relationships need feeding.  Because of this reality it is necessary to grasp that the most important place in the world for each of us is where we are. 

While we need physical bread for our physical survival where we are, we also need spiritual bread for where we are.  The Gospel of John demonstrates that fact.  While the disciples are at the Supper, Jesus teaches them and that teaching is recorded in five, yes, five chapters (13-17).  Who says Scripture is not central? Not only has Jesus already said that He is the bread of life (Jn.6:33, 35, 41, 48, 51), He prays at the end of the Supper that they may be sanctified by the truth and that the Word is truth (17:17).  So, teaching and the Lord’s Supper go hand in hand.  This means what we are taught is to be put into practice.  He Whom we worship we carry into every next moment in our world. 

This idea of personal location needs repetition.  Its importance is the very fact of Jesus Himself.   As was stated throughout this series, where we are as individuals, personally, physically, culturally, relationally, is exactly why Jesus entered the very same context.  Jesus was concerned for each heart in a world separated from His Father.   Every cultural norm, every personal attitude that sin filled in a frightened empty heart, He confronted.  Religion had replaced relationship.  Physical and emotional survival dominated the individual’s lifestyle as it does in our time.  Class, ethnicity, social and political power compromised God’s created images of Himself, replacing faith with fear. 

Jesus was totally and completely His Father’s Son living individually in a human heart, mind, and spirit.  Faith, grace, love and the Holy Spirit were His moment by moment attitudinal drives.   He was faith, He was love, He was grace and continues to be all three relating to us each heart by heart.  That’s exactly the way He is calling us to live right where we are in in our body, in our relationships and in our environment.   The world is not outside, it is us in the relationships we live in each day. The world is our relational experience.  That’s the world He loves and came to redeem (Jn.3:16).  It’s a world of hearts.  Hearts need spiritual feeding so Jesus started with His disciples engaging them in a very personal and spiritual meal that was Cross centered and Resurrection promising.  Cross-centered for their daily living experience of repentance and forgiveness.  Resurrection-promising to live conscious of His presence in the midst of people without faith and minister to those who do have faith.  So, we don’t only have a worship (vertical) experience we have a lifestyle (horizontal) experience. 

The world of hearts is our local contacts, family, friends, people we work with, people we meet casually along the way.  That’s exactly why Jesus’ mission was so local and personal.  When He commissioned the Apostles they were to go heart by heart and those who were brought to Jesus went heart by heart.  That is how a culture is changed, how a government is changed and how a nation is changed.  It begins with the individual heart.  Now, can we see why the Lord gave us a special meal loaded with intentions beyond it being just a liturgy, a religious practice?  It is the actual spiritual feeding the risen Lord has provided to engage our mind, heart and spirit for belief, trust and faith with whomever we come in contact.  Our minds, remember what His Word teaches us about God, our hearts are built by trust in Him fulfilling His Word in us and our spirits are motivated by faith to act as He did while we are on our way wherever we find ourselves.  Our continuing consciousness of His presence is fed to continue.  We are fed to think spiritually, to feel spiritually and to reach out spiritually.  When He feeds us, it breaks our pride and strengthens our humility, takes our impatience and gets us to think twice. It breaks our first impressions to wait on what’s really going on, our impetuous actions when we don’t get our way and our need to have His will be our will. 

Remember, this is all done to restore us to Him, rebuild character and encourage us to make disciples.   The Lord’s Supper is more than just words and feelings.  It’s an intimate encounter with the living God, feeding us spiritually in presence and Word, anointing us to live a daily lifestyle of taking, thanking, breaking and sharing.