Are You A Living Sacrifice?
Good Morning Friends,
It is Monday and I am using Sunday’s lectionary passages. They were shared around the world as part of communion services. They are about remembering the blessing of life found in the Word becoming flesh and the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb for our life in Jesus. Life is in the blood friends. But not everyone’s theology on this is the same. Regardless, somehow I think they combine in the hope of unity of a Body of Believers that supersedes those differences. So, today, with that in mind, we meditate on a mystery that is not so much about death but life. Are You A Living Sacrifice?
Scripture: Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a(NRSV)
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
1 Corinthians 10:16-17 (NRSV)
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So 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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
John 6:51-58 (NRSV)
Message: Yes, the words from John are familiar. They are the same offered at the last supper and when we share in the memory of that event there is a certain intimacy. But there is a difference in the context of John 6 and the events in the upper room at the Passover. Jesus’s words in today’s text were separated from the direct thought of the Paschal Lamb’s blood being spilled. Jesus had just fed the 5000 by multiply the loaves and fishes. Those who had experienced this miracle were now gathering around him, as the Israelites gathered around Moses, looking for physical sustainous not spiritual food. And Jesus tells them that such food as they are seeking is like manna and cannot last. Instead they need the whole being…the whole Word…the very flesh and blood of Christ in them. They must abide in God and God in them. Interpretation of these words varies but the response to them when first uttered was that they were too graphic. The offer though on another level is a surprising description of the permanent participation of one life in another that is worthy of our meditation. Of course, Jews disputed among themselves the words then and they still are the focus of a lot of debate. But really, what is being said? It seems that Jesus is giving the disciples and the followers a direct command like the one Moses gave to the Israelites to eat the manna; and so, in a likewise fashion, we hear in today’s scripture Jesus telling the Jewish crowd in front of him, to eat his body. Now in retrospect I believe we can say that Jesus is foreshadowing, not only the events of his death on the cross to come, but also of his atoning act of sacrifice for our sins through that event. But the crowds and even the disciples missed all this at the time. Even today the reality of Christ’s presence at the Eucharist is beyond our comprehension. Still I think the message here is that we too are to join with Christ as a living sacrifice of our self-will so that we might be set free. That is one good reason to remember Christ every time we eat.
Pray we have a healthy appetite for what is truly nutritious. Pray we realize the solemn and sober truth about eternity. Pray we thank Jesus for teaching us how to have a life worth living. Pray we thank Jesus for the experience of communion and its shared personal fellowship with the divine. Pray we remember the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the symbolism of the bread and wine. Pray we eat, live and abide in the love of God. Pray we proclaim God’s work of creation, redemption and sanctification in us until his return.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 