Lords Supper 10-2010

Luke 22:19-20 Everest summit, May 10, 1996, 29,028 feet. Straddling the top of the world, one foot in china and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet. I understood on some dim detached level that the sweep of earth beneath my feet was a spectacular sight. Id been fanaticizing about this moment and the release of emotion that would accompany it for many months. But now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, I just couldnt summon the energy to care. From his earliest years, Jon Krakauer was a climber. In the introduction, he tells of playing with the children of the first man to climb the western face of Everest and how that story captivated him. While other children had heroes like Willey Mayes and Mickey Mantle, his were famous mountaineers. Climbing Everest is well, the Mount Everest of climbing. So when Krakauers magazine offered to send him to write a story about the commercialization of Everest, he jumped at the chance. Now he has done it. In the rare air of the Himalayas, Krakauer joined the elite company of people that have straddled the highest point on the planet, five miles up in the troposphere. But the journey had taken so much from him that he could no longer summon the energy to care. I thought of my journey. How many times have I thought something would bring me joy, happiness, or fulfillment, and it usually did. For a while. But whatever it offered didnt last. I think this is why we are always broke and unhappy.

How many people spend their lives chasing a dream, or some thing but when they finally get it, like Krakauer, they cant summon the energy to care. Maybe they do care. They care too much. That thing, that lesser god, is everything to them. Now that they have it, they want more of it. I was watching Nick Saban last night. What drives a man to do what he does? National championship? He has two. But every year he wants another one. Nothing wrong with dreams and goals. But we must not measure life by these lesser things. Rewind the tape to Luke 22:19 Luke 22:19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me." Why did Jesus do that? What does that little piece of bread have to do with his body? Was he being literal. Some think that in the Lords Supper the bread actually is the body of Christ. Surely theres more to it than that.

The Bread is a symbol of life

It goes back to his teaching in John 6. It started when Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish. He did that to prove his power, but he also did it to prove a point about life. That night, after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus slipped away to the other side of the lake. Capernaum. The crowd followed him there. But they werent following Jesus for spiritual reasons. They were following him because they saw him as a source of easy food. They wanted this spiritual leader to satisfy their physical needs because like all of us, we think if we can get

our physical needs met, then the spiritual stuff will take care of itself. Does that sound familiar? Even today, people teach that if you will come to Jesus he will cure your poverty, heal all your sicknesses and fill your bank account with cash. Name it and claim it. Thats the message of the prosperity Gospel. If you have enough faith, Jesus, your spiritual benefactor, will solve all your physical problems. In their case, it was food. In our case, its more about cars and stuff. Skip down to John 6:26. 26 Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. You follow me for the wrong reasons. You still dont care about whats how you can become more intimate with God. You only care about now! This moment.

Jesus is a part of life, but he isnt life to us.

Most of us compartmentalize our spiritual lives. So we spend most of our time trying to figure out the physical part of life and then come to church an hour a week to fix the spiritual stuff. Id like to buy three dollars worth of God. Please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a rebirth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. Id like to buy about three dollars worth of God, please. Through the bread illustration, Jesus was saying, this is the exact wrong way to approach me. Im not here to feed you bread. I am the bread. Im not part of life. I am the way to life. What happens when you eat bread? It gets into every part of you. Thats what hes talking about. I dont want you to take some of me, some of the time.

You want God to help you get what you want. But what you want doesnt last.
27 "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal." Jesus is pressing them to see beyond this life. To understand the spirit and what it means to relate to God. I wish I had time to explore this whole thing; its so rich. But we dont. Skip down to 35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. I read that and think, if this is true then why are so many Christians so hungry? I think its because we want part of Jesus but not all of him.

Consume me and I will consume you.

Not only does he satisfy your life. He gives you life. 48 "I am the bread of life. 49 "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 "This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. Heres where we get it wrong. We tend to think that salvation is like a ticket to an event. Purchase the ticket by faith and when life ends you get to go to heaven. But this is an aorist subjunctive tense. Aorist is past tense. Subjunctive indicates condition.

If you eat this bread, thats the condition, Then you wont have died.
Have died. Its not that we will die. When you sin, the wages of sin is death but you get that paycheck that moment. The Bible says that we are dead in sins. Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, Were dead. Not will die. So anyone that sins is already dead. Salvation brings the dead back to life. Or even more accurately, it recreates the dead. This happens the moment you receive Christs forgiveness by faith. So eternal life begins with salvation. Salvation isnt a ticket to heaven. Salvation is a relationship with God. He brings us back from the dead so that we can know God. Knowing God we know life. Thats not future. Its now. 51 "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh." All of this is obviously symbolic. Nobody ever ate Jesus or drank his blood. Its a metaphor of how grace redeems us from sin, and gives us a life that is marked by satisfaction and fulfillment.

relationship doesnt start when you die. It starts when you trust Christ. When that happens, you stop dying and start living.

If faith has made me alive from the dead, then why do I still act like a dead man?
Why do we spend all of our time and energy trying to find life in something besides Jesus? We all do that. We focus on stuff. Or the opinions of others. Its so hard not to do that. Try to make everyone happy. Some dont care, they just want to make themselves happy. Hang everyone else. But nothing ever does. You are like Jon Krakauer sitting on top of Everest. So at the Lords supper, Jesus took a bit of bread and said, This is my body broken for you. Take and eat.

In just a moment, you will hold a piece of bread in your hand. Its not Jesus. Its a symbol of the body. The body is a symbol of the bread. The bread is a symbol of life. Its given to remind us to stop living like dead people.

Heres something we miss. I think we miss it because we dont want all of Jesus and sure dont want Jesus to have all of us.
So many view salvation as something future. One day, when I die I will be saved. Thats not it at all. Salvation begins when you trust Christ. God didnt send his son to die on a cross so that we could go to heaven. He did that so we could know HIM. The