Act of remembrance

For some time now I have been taking communion daily and meditating on the meaning of it. It seems that God continues to reveal layers of significance and I just wanted to share a little of this with you.

The first thought I have been mulling over is that in all four Gospels and the passage in 1 Corinthians 11, the writers all stress that communion was taken in the midst of betrayal. This incredibly important act of remembrance was instigated in the face of betrayal, and not the betrayal by one of the thousands of followers, hoping to make a quick buck, but by a close friend, one who dipped his hand in the bowl with Jesus, any act of great fellowship - Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve. 

I find it almost frightening how easy it is for disciples to be deceived, to believe that what we are doing is what God wants us to do. We read that after the betrayal, the scales fell from Judas’s eyes and overcome by terrible remorse, he killed himself. Please God keep us humbly close to you that we too may not be deceived into doing and saying things that are not of you. 

Then Jesus took the bread and broke it ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ You can imagine the disciples looking at one another wondering what Jesus meant. Someone may have remembered the occasion, recorded in John 6: 53-58:

53 Jesus replied to them, “Listen to this eternal truth: Unless you eat the body of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have eternal life. 54 Eternal life comes to the one who eats my body and drinks my blood, and I will raise him up in the last day. 55 For my body is real food for your spirit and my blood is real drink. 56 The one who eats my body and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him. 57 The Father of life sent me, and he is my life. In the same way, the one who feeds upon me, I will become his life. 58 I am not like the bread your ancestors ate and later died. I am the living Bread that comes from heaven. Eat this Bread and you will live forever!” 

We have eternal life not by taking communion but by accepting Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, his body broken for us, his blood shed for us is the only way to salvation. The communion meal represents and reminds us of this. 

As we take the bread, we recall that ‘by his wounds we are healed.’  The word for healed is also for salvation. Jesus broken body saves, heals and delivers us. His death brought complete salvation; body, mind and spirit. I like to bring my family and friends struggling with health to Jesus at this point. 

‘Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you.’ This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’ 

In the midst of betrayal and no doubt with the upcoming acts of desertion, denial, and unbelief from the disciples in his mind, Jesus offered the cup representing his blood to his disciples for the forgiveness of their sins. If ever there was a moment to remind ourselves that being perfect is not a prerequisite for salvation or communion, this must be it. Jesus knows and forgives our sins as we humbly bring them before him. 

The cup represents the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31: 33 – 34 which concludes with ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sin no more.’ This covenant to unfaithful Israel promised forgiveness of sins and a new relationship and it is open to all – you and me.  God promises that ‘I will be their God and they will be my people.’ Covenants are cut with the shedding of blood, are binding, and God never breaks his. In the past the Jews found forgiveness for sins though the shedding of the blood of bulls, sheep and goats. Now a new covenant has been cut in Jesus’ blood as the perfect, all sufficient sacrifice.  He promises to look after us, protect and provide for us as our God. 

The blood of Jesus is incredibly powerful and I like to pray the blood over my family by name, friends, church and any others that God has laid on my heart. 

It was love, not duty or responsibility, that took Jesus to the cross and love that kept him there till he could cry, ‘It is finished.’ 

I believe God is calling us from the tradition of only taking communion at church on Sunday into taking communion as often as we like to remind ourselves of what Jesus did on the cross for us, the completeness of that work and God’s promise to take care of his people through the new covenant cut at Calvary. 

I recommend The Power of Communion by Beni Johnson. 

A guilty conscience cleansed

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,  so that we may serve the living God! Hebrews 9: 14

When Joseph’s brothers went down to Egypt to buy food, as Canaan was also suffering in the famine, they unknowingly met Joseph who was in charge of selling food. Joseph recognised them and demanded that to prove they were not spies one of them must be left and they must bring their youngest brother Benjamin, Joseph’s only true brother, to Egypt. Benjamin had been left behind at the insistence of their father Jacob who did not want to lose the only other son of his beloved wife Rachel.

When the brothers heard Joseph’s demands they immediately saw it as a punishment for what they had done to him 20 years before (Genesis 42: 21 – 22). Reuben quickly tries to distance himself from their wrong actions and adds blame to their very guilty consciences.  It is amazing how much the guilt of what they had done to Joseph and the grief they had caused their father still weighed heavily on them after all these years.

This is what a guilty conscience does. It weighs us down and is never far from our thoughts. When things go wrong we immediately go back to that wrong act or decision we made and decide that is to blame and the reason why we are now experiencing difficulties.  

When Jesus died on the cross he not only took our sins but also our guilt and shame. Jesus doesn’t forgive our sins but leave us with a guilty conscience about them. He took the guilt as well and he has no desire for us to live under the weight of it. Nor are our past bad actions or poor decisions causing punishment that leads to difficulties now. As Jesus said as he died, ‘It is finished.’  The grip of sin, death, guilt and shame is broken. The blood of Jesus cleanses our guilty consciences declaring us not guilty in the eyes of everyone including ourselves.

The devil loves to play the blame game and remind us of our past. He wants us drowning in guilt and shame but we must let God renew our minds and wash away every trace of guilt and shame. It does not make us more humble to be reminded of our past failures – instead it paralyses us from moving on. We always have the ball and chain of guilt dragging along behind us.

Cut the chain and decide today to resist every thought that takes us back to those failures. Ask Jesus to cleanse your conscience with his precious blood and declare ‘Today I have the mind of Christ. My conscience is clear. My guilt and shame have been taken away and I am free to live and serve the living God to the fullness of my being.’

Redeemed by the blood

I am redeemed by the blood

In the Bible it tell us that ’without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness’ (Hebrews 9:22).  It doesn’t matter how sorry we are for the things we have done wrong, unless someone’s or something’s blood has been shed, there is no forgiveness.

In Old Testament times the Jewish people had to sacrifice bulls and goats every day.  Blood was smeared and sprinkled upon the altar but this imperfect sacrifice could not adequately take away sins.  Now though through the perfect sacrifice of the wonderful blood of Jesus shed for us, all our sins have been forgiven. 

When Jesus hung on the cross his blood was dripping down from his back tattered by the brutal flogging he had received, from his hands and feet and from his head where the crown of thorns had been pushed cruelly onto his head.  It was this precious blood that Jesus took into the eternal tabernacle to make a way for us into the Father’s presence. 

It is the blood of Jesus that cleanses our guilty consciences and the blood of Jesus that gives us access to the Father.  We need never hold back.  We can come right up to our loving heavenly Father by the precious blood shed for us and offer thankful hearts to him ‘that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’ (Hebrew 4: 16).