The Master's Meal

In recent years I have focused more (than earlier) on Christ’s death and resurrection. In our congregation we ‘celebrate’ our Master’s death monthly, and for the last four years we hosted a Christian Passover meal as part of the Easter preparation.  The centrality of the cross has also come through in the weekly preaching.

The Passover is the old Jewish feast that commemorates the birth of their nation at the Exodus from Egypt.  At this crucial event, God, ‘remembering’ His promises to Abraham, rescues his offspring from suffering in slavery and sets them on the journey to the Promised Land. 

It was a new beginning.  What God had built up in Abraham’s life, making him a man of faith, seems to have been lost in his children.  Judah and his sons lived not much different from the God-accursed Canaanites.  And yet, God continued with his plans, fulfilling his promises to Abraham. He called Israel from Canaan, leading them to the borderlands of Egypt.  Living in relative isolation, God used this time of about four hundred years to let Canaan’s sins ripen for judgment while he built the Hebrews into a great multitude.  Although they had the stories of their fathers and their patriarchs were ‘waiting’ in the Promised Land, it seemed that few people thought of leaving Egypt. 

So, God had to use brutal slavery and oppression to stir in the Hebrews a longing for home.  And then he used a battle of magic (spiritual power) to show that He is God Almighty, and that Abraham’s seed could fully trust Him all the way home.  Yet, they had a lot to learn on their journey through the wilderness.  And it did not come easy to them to live as God’s Kingdom in a royal priesthood.  Only finally, in King David, do we get a glimpse of the Kingdom as God had wanted it.  Yet, also this Golden Age was short-lived; soon the Kingdom crumbled and collapsed until Abraham’s seed was forced to leave their land again.

Matthew (in his first chapter) begins his account with this redemptive history. In bold strokes he paints a powerful picture of the story of God’s Kingdom from Abraham to Christ.  It is an amazing portrait showing the creation, fall, and restoration of God’s Kingdom.  Finally, after another long time in exile, a righteous remnant may return to the land of Israel and the city of David.  And then the time has come for God to bring his covenant to the climax in his Son, for He is the true Son of Abraham, the true Son of David.

When we meet the Lord Jesus near the dramatic end of his ministry, he hosts the Passover meal.  On the eve of his Exodus, the Passover lamb had been slain so that its blood outside the door could save the family inside.  Now, the true Passover Lamb has come, ready to lay down His life to save His people from the judgment.   Breaking the bread of suffering, He claims, “This is my body- the bread of my suffering!”  Also, to provide the wine for His Wedding Feast, his precious blood would have to flow.  Only in this way could God’s wrath for sin be satisfied, and only through His Son’s death could history unfold to the final and full restoration of God’s Kingdom!

When we come to the communion (table), we are standing at the cross.  Looking back, we can see the road of the covenant: from Paradise through the fall and the flood to Abraham.  Abraham did not have to walk the path of blood when the covenant was sealed, for already there God promised to be broken as Abraham’s seed would break the covenant.  Then, we look from Abraham via Egypt and the Exodus to the Promised Land; from David through the breaking of the Kingdom and the exile to the Lamb of God.  And the Lord said, “The New Reality starts here: Look ahead: from the cross to the open grave, and from the Pentecost to the Final Harvest Feast!”  As surely as the Messiah has come, so we must be assured that He will come again to make all things new!  And just as Christ is the Lamb who was slain, He is also the Bridegroom, inviting us into His wedding feast.

The citizens of Rome may have thought that the Christians were crazy cannibals, but for the followers of Christ the Communion is a powerful picture of an incredible story.  The traditional Passover is a ‘bittersweet event’, looking back at suffering in slavery and judgment, while it also celebrates freedom and the road to a new land of peace and prosperity.   For us, in the new covenant, it is also a bittersweet event: Through His torture and murder we may celebrate our new lives of freedom in Christ.  And we must be encouraged to continue the journey in faithful anticipation of the New Jerusalem!

At the Lord’s Supper we are invited to share in this sacrifice and in its blessed outcome.  He invites all his followers to join Him at the table.  When our Lord Jesus proclaimed “This is my body”, he did not actually eat his body; neither did he drink his own blood. Yet, when we join him at the table, somehow He is there: standing in our midst.  Of course, in his Spirit, He is present everywhere- especially where two or three are gathered in his Name!  So, how is His presence special and unique when we celebrate His Supper?  I don’t know; I cannot exactly understand.  Perhaps, in our rejection of the Roman mass, we have become blind to the mystery of the communion… Perhaps here lies another mystery that we cannot fully grasp.  But that’s all right: it would be a mistake if we try to limit God’s truth to our understanding or to force it into rigid creeds!

Covenant and Election

Are people saved because God decided, long before they existed, that these specific people should (1) hear the Gospel, then (2) receive the faith to recognize and accept the truth, and furthermore (3) receive the spiritual power to preserve and produce the fruit of faith?

For humans it does not come natural to see reality from God’s perspective, but once we come to know God, we cannot deny that everything hinges on God’s plans.  If God is truly God, he must be all-knowing and all-powerful, and He will not leave any outcome to chance; he will certainly not leave things to the fickle decisions and actions of sinful people.

Nevertheless, if we use God’s perspective as our primary perspective, we easily get in trouble.  If we see people as either destined for salvation (to go to Heaven) or for continuation on their road to perdition (Hell), we would likely become …

• ·         paranoid about our position (Are we among the elect or not?),
• ·         passive and fatalistic (We cannot change anything, for God has decided our destiny!), and/or
• ·         proud in false assurance (As member of the true church, my destiny is assured!).

Although the Bible confirms the reality of unconditional election, it is also very clear that we are still addressed as beings with personal responsibility, which must make the right decisions (implying that we do have options to choose from).  Therefore all people must seriously seek God (Acts 17), and when they hear the truth (about their spiritual state in the face of a holy God, and God’s rescue plan through Christ’s suffering and death), they must repent and believe. 

When we have been regenerated by His Spirit our perspective changes.  We realize that we cannot take credit for good acts such as believing the Gospel, since we could only do this through the (regenerating) work of His Spirit.  Also, our responsibilities do not end there. We are called to put Christ in the centre of our lives and to show our thankfulness in our obedience to the teaching of Jesus and his apostles.  If we have truly experienced God’s amazing grace, there can be only one outcome: we will become mirrors of His love.  Over time our election must become evident in growing godliness and in perseverance of our faith.  Even if we are surrounded by hostility or hypocrisy, we must prayerfully persevere in living as true follower of Jesus Christ, “walking just as Jesus walked”.

Throughout this development, it is pointless to wonder whether or not we are truly elected unto salvation. We must obey the way of Christ, not to please our parents, pastor, or peers but out of true thankfulness for God’s amazing grace.  When we continue to walk the way of Christian faith, it is obvious that this is the work of God, and we may be confident that God, who began this work in us, will continue to provide for us so that we can run the race until the finish line.

Although the Bible clearly shows us the way of salvation and our responsibilities in this regard, that does not make it easy to comprehend.  After all, in our human understanding (or rather, in our lack of understanding) if God has already decided the outcome of events, there are no real choices or options left for us. Conversely, if we have real responsibility and there are really options that we can choose from, then God cannot have predestined the outcome in advance.  Or, perhaps, as authors like Philip Yancey have suggested, God has relinquished some of His Power, taking a huge risk by letting us decide what will really happen in the time to come.

Either way we pretend that we can comprehend the ways of God.  Whether we deny God’s true sovereignty (for instance, by suggesting that he has put it on hold) or the existence of choices that people need to make (by denying that faith is an action performed by (regenerated) humans, or by denying the need to accept Christ), we end up twisting the truth and getting off the biblical balance!  

The reality is too complex for our simple minds to fully grasp.  It is like trying to force the earth’s spherical (or ellipsoidal) surface into a two-dimensional projection like a map.  If we insist on right angles between parallels and meridians, the areas and shapes of the continents get badly distorted.  On the other hand, if we are determined to keep the areas in proportion to reality, then we end up with twisted angles or with a fragmented picture of the whole.  Similarly, we create a distorted view of God if we (1) insist on human choices and responsibility, and then conclude that God has relinquishes his control, or (2) insist on God’s sovereign power, and then conclude that humans actually have no options left, since they are either elect for heaven or doomed for hell.  We must learn to accept with humility that we cannot always give a neat and accurate doctrinal description that does justice to the full truth, revealed to us in Scripture.  I understand that men like John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards grasped this reality of truth in tension, pleading for a balanced perspective.

Skeptics might easily dismiss this teaching, claiming that the apparent contradiction proves that it cannot be true.  Yet, in modern science there are also situations where we face similar dilemmas and apparent contradictions.  Many scientists believe (!) that everything is determined by scientific laws that control all cause-effect relationships.  Consequently, the outcome of events has been predetermined (by the conditions at the beginning), and the natural events just run as they have been programmed in the laws of nature.  Yet, no responsible human being can consistently dismiss human responsibility for their actions, for the categories of good and evil would become meaningless.  It has been said that a scientist, convinced of the predetermination of all things will still check for traffic before crossing a busy road!