Of Shoes and Ships

Christ said that he who has been forgiven much loves much. And we can complete the argument by adding that he who loves much will be quick to forgive. What we receive from our God we pass on to our brothers and sisters, and it grows and grows in the giving.

At this table we see the peace of God lavishly given away. Remember, Christianity is the way that sin is dealt with, and it’s the only way sin is really dealt with. So all week you’ve been sinning and when you stumble up the stairs on Sunday morning, you are stained and smeared with sin. But God invites you to confess your sins and if you do, then he cleanses you. And once clean, you are invited to his table to partake in peace with all the household of God.

God forgave all your sins and he invites you to taste that forgiveness again and again in bread and wine. But then you pass the bread and wine to your brother or sister. Thus the peace of God spreads.

So you have been forgiven much. In spite of your traitorous conduct, you have been brought into the household of God, entirely undeserved. And this bread and wine are a mandate to you to pass the peace, meaning to forgive your brothers and sisters when they sin against you, and to seek their forgiveness when you sin against them. There will be ample opportunity.

This doesn’t mean excusing sin or claiming that it isn’t that bad after all. You cannot forgive where there is no repentance. But you can stand ready. You can have forgiveness wrapped like a present and waiting for them. You can (and must) slay the bitterness that tries to fester in your heart. And then you pass on to them what God has given to you.

One striking thing about this meal is its ordinariness. What is more common than bread? What is more common than wine? We put a nice tablecloth on the table and a platter under the bread, but in some ways that just highlights the everyday-ness of the elements. The bread is baked in your homes; we don’t go get it from robed monks in a high mountain bakery on the fourth day after the full moon. The wine is just wine. The same sort of stuff you might have with dinner on a Thursday night.

And yet it is the body and blood of Christ Jesus.

This is rich with instruction for us. God takes up that which is ordinary and unremarkable and makes it the instrument for his purposes in the world. He took shepherds and made them prophets and kings and stewards of the oracles of God. He took fishermen and put pens in their hands and through them breathed out a story that has shaken empires and fills the whole earth with joy. And most dramatically of all, God himself took on man’s flesh and soul. Hidden in the carpenter from Nazareth was all the fulness of God, and by his death, the death of a common criminal, He takes corpses and makes them saints of the most high and ultimately eternal splendors.

This meal is utterly ordinary, and yet by it God is making you like Jesus, by it God is sealing his promises to you, by it God is declaring his presence with you, by it God marks you out as a people for his own. And something often overlooked is the fact that we pass the bread and wine from hand to hand. How do the things of God get to you? They come in a basket that your little brother hands to you. So as you receive and pass the elements, rejoice that God has chosen to make us his. Rejoice that he has condescended to us so profoundly, and receive and pass holy mysteries to your brothers and sisters.

[Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash] 

When Paul is on route to Rome in order to appear before Caesar, his ship sails into a terrible storm. It is so bad that the crew and passengers are unable to eat, for days. We’re not told why. Maybe they were too busy with the cares of the ship and the terror of the storm. Maybe the storm made it too difficult to find and serve the food. Regardless, they have gone 14 days without eating. Finally, Paul urges them to eat, and his reasoning is that they are going to survive the storm. God has assured Paul that they will all make it safely to shore, but that won’t be much good if they then starve to death on the beach, or if they are too weak to crawl away before the tide comes in.

The same exhortation can be applied here: You are storm-tossed and weary, at times much afflicted, but your God has guaranteed your survival. What does that mean? It means you have the promise–solid as the bedrock and unaltering as the firmament–of life abundant, life eternal. The storm may get really bad, the metaphorical ship might get smashed up, but your life is guaranteed.

And because you are a being headed for eternal life, because this world with all its absurd beauties and hilarious splendors is only the foyer of the Cosmos, because you have a great journey ahead of you, come and eat the food God has given you. Christ’s body is true food. His blood is true drink. Don’t worry too much about explaining the mystery, rather receive with joy the gift of God. Here are the promises of God made tangible. Here is strength and sustenance for your soul. You’ll need it; you have a long way to go.

Every Lord’s Day God cleanses us from our sins and gives us Himself, and this is gift beyond any reasonable creaturely expectation, but it is entirely consistent with the nature of the Triune God.

He has been giving Himself away from all eternity, and all creaturely existence is a manifestation of His giving of Himself. And the self-giving of God has always been by Word. In the beginning that word was light and water and land and trees and stars and birds and fish and camels and crocodiles and us. But somehow that was too small, so God spoke to Adam, and even in the midst of cursing He spoke promise. And He spoke promise to Abraham, and Law to Moses, and blessing and warning and curses and more promises by the mouths of all the prophets and psalmists and sages.

But apparently this was too small, so in the fullness of time, God gave us Himself by means of a Word made flesh, the eternally divine Word of God in our shape and likeness, one whom we could see and touch and speak with face to face.

But the Word took on flesh so that it might be broken, he took on blood so that it could be spilled, and by this breaking and shedding, we might be transformed into vessels fit for the Holy Spirit.

For the Word is not to remain outside of us. As Moses said in Deut. 30, the commandment is not far off, it is not in heaven or beyond the sea, it is near to you, in your very mouth, and in your heart. At this Table, every Lord’s Day, the King of Heaven again gives you Himself in bread and in wine; these are visible words. Your God is not far off; He is in your very midst. His word is passed from hand to hand, and it is in your very mouth.