Blog »The Lord's Supper: Do We Really Understand?
Tuesday, April 30, 2013

On Sunday we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper or Communion.   Matthew, Mark and Luke describe the event precisely in the way Jews experienced the Old Testament system of sacrifice.   The priest would take an unblemished (because God is without flaw), innocent , substitute (God is paying for their sin) animal.   He would lay hands on it, blessing it (transferring human sin onto the animal), then break/kill it (God represented by the animal dies for the people), then they would eat a meal with the meat from the sacrifices, celebrating God’s freeing them from sin.    

At  the Last Supper Jesus reenacts this very ceremony, familiar to all Jews, only now He, the  host of the meal, is also the sacrifice (symbolized by the bread and wine).   All four elements are in this event:    the taking of an unblemished, innocent substitute, blessing it (the transferring of sin), breaking (killing) and the meal which represents the taking into ourselves the Life of God Himself.  

            "While they were eating, Jesus took brea, and when he had given thanks, he
             broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying 'Take and eat; this is my body.'"
                                                                                                          Matthew 26:26

This is incredible!  

I wonder if you and I really “get” this.  I suspect that our familiarity with this event makes us to some degree unfamiliar with it.  

The creator of the cosmos, the one who is perfection and who defines goodness and power, chooses to humble Himself even unto death for us.  Is this not beyond comprehension?  

Please take some time today to comprehend.    Does what this tell you about God break you?   Humble you?  Motivate you?   Or does it leave you unchanged?

Reflection for Friday, April 26, 2013

“Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose
that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."
John 21:25 (NIV)   

 

       

 

April 2013 - Science and Miracles Go Together

In rejecting the idea of miracles or supernatural intervention from the realm of possibility, C.S. Lewis argues that some scientists have mistaken a partial system of reality, Nature, for the whole of all that exists.  He writes,
      "If the laws of Nature are necessary truths, no miracle can break them:  but then no miracle
      needs to break them.  It is with them as with the laws of arithmetic.  If I put six pennies into
      a drawer on Monday and six more on Tuesday, the laws decree that . . . . I shall find twelve
      pennies there on Wednesday.  But if the drawer has been robbed I may in fact find only two.
      Something will have been broken (the lock of the drawer or the laws of England) but the laws
      of arithmetic will not have been broken.  The new situation created by the thief will illustrate
      the laws of arithmetic just as well as the original situation.  But if God comes to work in
      miracles, He comes "like a thief in the night."  Miracle is, from the point of view of the scientist
      a form of doctoring, tampering, (if you like) cheating.  It introduces a new factor into the
      situation, namely supernatural force, which the scientist had not reckoned on.  He calculates
      what will happen or what must have happened on a past occasion, in the belief that the
      situation at that point of space and time, is or was A.  But if supernatural force had been
      added, then the situation really is or was AB.  And no one knows better than the scientist
      that AB cannot yield the same result as A.  The necessary truth of the laws, far from making
      it impossible that  miracles should occur, makes it certain that if the Supernatural is operating,
      they must occur.  For if the natural situation by itself, and the natural situation plus something
      else, yielded only the same result, it would be then that we should be faced with a lawless
      and unsystematic universe. . . . this perhaps helps to make a little clearer what the laws of
      Nature really are . . . .They produce no events: they state the pattern to which every event
      . . . . must conform, just as the rules of arithmetic state the pattern to which all transactions
      with money must conform. . . . The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the
      pattern to which events conform but by feeding new events into that pattern  . . . .The
      reason (some) find it intolerable is that they start by taking Nature to be the whole of
      reality.  and they are sure that all reality must be interrelated and consistent.  I agree with
      them.  But I think they have mistaken a partial system within reality, namely Nature, for
      the whole. . . .The great complex event called Nature, and the new particular event introduced
      into it by the miracle, are related by their common origin in God. . . .By definition, miracles
      must of course interrupt the usual course of Nature; but if they are real they must, in the
      very act of so doing, assert all the more the unity and self-consistency of total reality at
      some deeper level."

An example of Lewis's logic is the miraculous conception of Jesus in the virgin, Mary, and the natural nine-month pregnancy which followed.  Both had their origin in God.  God's natural laws and His miracles go hand in hand.

                                    "Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!
                                    Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles."
                                                                   I Chronicles 16:11-23 (ESV)

 

 



Self-Sufficiency or Hope?
Friday, April 5, 3013  

The Roman Philosopher Seneca wrote,  

            "When will it be our privilege to utter the words, 'I have conquered'? Do you ask me
             whom I have conquered? Not external enemies…" They recognized a great truth.
             It's not just soldiers. It's not just defeating other people that's the real challenge. "…
             but greed, ambition, fear of death, all of these things that could disturb me internally
             that has conquered the conquerors."  

In the Ancient world to be a conqueror meant to become so self-sufficient, so self-reliant that no circumstance can disturb you anymore. Then you're a conqueror.  In Contrast the apostle Paul wrote,

           “I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming
            good times. . . . . we groan inwardly waiting to be delivered . . . .and in this hope we
            are saved. . . . .Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or
            hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . .No, in all
            these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."              
                                                                                            Romans 8:18-37

He says we are saved in “hope”,  not my self reliance in being able to conquer whatever I’m facing!    He says it's not because of your strength or mine. It's not because things will turn out the way I want them to in this life, and it's not because I have conquered my emotions through supremely powerful, self-sufficient reason.  

Rather it’s because Jesus, as an act of complete grace, for people as sin-soaked and sin-damaged and sin-stained as me, chose to give his life and suffer and groan and die on a cross for somebody like me. If we ever really understood that, everybody would stand up and cheer like we have never cheered for anything before in our lives.  That's  the good news.  

Note:   I am indebted to John Ortberg, Pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church for the above insight.

?

The Greatest Question Ever Asked

Thursday April 4, 2013

  “How is it that in a world of entropy, suffering, disease, war, death, pain, predation and shattered dreams, that anything good ever happens?

 

 The Answer

“God brings Life to the dead and brings into existence what does not yet exist”
Romans 4:17

Science and Miracles Go Together
Wednesday, April 3, 3013  

“Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!
Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles”

1 Chronicles 16:11-12 (ESV)  

Here’s how C.S. Lewis explains the connection between science and miracles:   it’s brilliant!  

"If the laws of Nature are necessary truths, no miracle can break them: but then no miracle needs to break them. It is with them as with the laws of arithmetic. If I put six pennies into a drawer on Monday and six more on Tuesday, the laws decree that... I shall find twelve pennies there on Wednesday. But if the drawer has been robbed I may in fact find only two. Something will have been broken (the lock of the drawer or the laws of England) but the laws of arithmetic will not have been broken. The new situation created by the thief will illustrate the laws of arithmetic just as well as the original situation.  

But if God comes to work miracles, He comes "like a thief in the night." Miracle is, from the point of view of the scientist, a form of doctoring, tampering, (if you like) cheating. It introduces a new factor into the situation, namely supernatural force, which the scientist had not reckoned on. He calculates what will happen, or what must have happened on a past occasion, in the belief that the situation, at that point of space and time, is or was A. But if supernatural force has been added, then the situation really is or was AB. And no one knows better than the scientist that AB cannot yield the same result as A. The necessary truth of the laws, far from making it impossible that miracles should occur, makes it certain that if the Supernatural is operating they must occur. For if the natural situation by itself, and the natural situation plus something else, yielded only the same result, it would be then that we should be faced with a lawless and unsystematic universe... This perhaps helps to make a little clearer what the laws of Nature really are... They produce no events: they state the pattern to which every event... must conform, just as the rules of arithmetic state the pattern to which all transactions with money must conform...The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the pattern to which events conform but of feeding new events into that pattern...
 

The reason (some) find it intolerable is that they start by taking Nature to be the whole of reality. And they are sure that all reality must be interrelated and consistent. I agree with them. But I think they have mistaken a partial system within reality, namely Nature, for the whole...The great complex event called Nature, and the new particular event introduced into it by the miracle, are related by their common origin in God... By definition, miracles must of course interrupt the usual course of Nature; but if they are real they must, in the very act of so doing, assert all the more the unity and self-consistency of total reality at some deeper level."  

An example of Lewis's logic is the miraculous conception of Jesus in the virgin, Mary, and the natural nine-month pregnancy which followed. Both had their origin in God. God's natural laws and His miracles go hand in hand.