Category: Word/Sacrament

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Food and Temptation

Much of the Sacred Scriptures deal with food. Food has both a nurturing dimension and a testing dimension. When eaten accordingly, it nurtures; when eaten at the wrong time it is a sign of failure. Adam and Even fell as a consequence of eating at the wrong time. Eating uncontrollably leads to gluttony; so too, eating at the right time leads to nurture.

Food is given to us for our enjoyment and pleasure, but it is truly pleasurable when it is given by the Father at the right time.

Jesus understood this lesson in the wilderness. He could turn stones into bread and satisfy his hunger, but He acknowledge that faithfulness to the Father’s word (Deut.8) is far more beneficial than food. The principle then is that faithfulness precedes food.

At the Lord’s Table, Yahweh provides for us a meal. He tells us when to eat. The meal is given for us after we have been faithful in our call, our confession, and consecration. We only eat when God says so.

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Baptismal Privileges and Responsibilities

Rev. Bill Smith writes:

Each person who is baptized into Christ partakes in these thing. They are of the samecloth. We cannot enjoy the privileges apart from the responsibilities. God’s purpose from the time of your baptism onward is to mature you so that you are more conformed to his image and likeness.

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Infant Faith

Rich Lusk observes concerning infants:

We should not be skeptical of their Spiritual experiences and their feeble worship; instead we should expect them to live in an environment wholly conditioned by God’s grace and truth. They are awesomely distinguished even from the womb as God weaves them together into a holy dwelling place for His Son and Spirit; they are sharp arrows aimed at the hearts of God’s enemies; they are a heritage from the Lord and a great reward to the faithful; they are model soldiers and worshippers in the Lord’s liturgical army. This is the Psalter’s theology of covenant children.

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Thoughts on the disappearance of the family table…

Whatever happened to the family table? Why are families no longer eating together? Why are sons allowed to take their dinners to their rooms without consulting dad and mom? This is a terrible trend. It is my unscientific conclusion that much of this forgotten familial gift stems from the evangelical church’s abandonment of the Lord’s Supper as a frequent/weekly meal. If the church–as God’s eternal family–establishes a model for the biological family, then the abandonment of the Lord’s Table leads to the abandonment of the family table.

My friend and mentor Randy Booth summarizes it this way:

We begin each week gathered around the Table as children to be instructed and nourished, just before we are sent out to live. And so too, we go to our homes and gather around smaller tables to be instructed and nourished, and from there we also fan out to live and to love. The liturgy is practice for life.

Responses:

Rev. Brian Nolder wrote in response:

Uri: possible, but doubtful. It more has to do with the “pace” of modern life (and probably the flourishing of restaurants to accommodate that pace), esp. our desire for constant entertainment. There is a great contrast in the movie Avalon where the 1st generation is feasting around the table, talking and joking, and later, the 2nd generation are sitting together, not talking, b/c they are all watching the television. I think mass media (including social networking!) is more the culprit.

Hannah Roorda wrote in response:

Maybe the media is allowed to take this role because the church is not filling it/the family is not living in the church. So the consumption of media rather than participation in family life is a symptom of the problem Pastor Brito is pointing out?

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Exhortation: Discerning the Body

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Church constitutes the body of Christ. If you are here this morning you are in one way or another connected to the people of God. Paul stresses that we are to discern the body of Christ when we come to the Lord’s Table. But don’t think for a moment that this is some call to intellectually grasp the fullness of the physical body of Christ. Paul’s entire context in I Corinthians has been to unify the Church in Corinth, which has been so filled with corruption. Paul says that these divisions between rich and poor; slave and free, male and female are completely contrary to the unifying purposes of God in the world. God sent His Son to reconcile the world unto himself, and in the mind of God there is only one race, the chosen race. Discerning the body means to understand the nature of the Church; and the nature of the Church is to be united together with one purpose: the worship of the Triune God. In other words, you can write a dissertation on the crucifixion of Christ, but if you are bitter towards your brother you are not discerning the body. So, when we come to the Lord’s Table at the end of this service, reconcile if reconciliation is needed for this is God’s will for the Church. Let us pray.

Most merciful Christ, you have by your life, death, and resurrection reconciled sinners. Grant that we may live this life of reconciliation thus uniting your body for the sake of your Kingdom. Amen.

 

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Re-Considering Birthdays…

My friend Rich Lusk made a refreshing observation recently at the 20th Family Advance Conference. He wondered why we do not celebrate baptismal days, when in fact our baptisms are more important than our actual birthdays.

Baptism is our second birth; the true birth from above (John 3). How do we incorporate our rich sacramental theology into the common year? It seems that baptismal celebrations would accentuate our true births. High sacramentology leads to high feastology.

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John Calvin on Weekly Communion

Concerning the Fourth Lateral Council’s decision that the  faithful should partake of the Lord’s Supper once a year, Kim Riddlebarger’s summarizes Calvin’s position thusly:

John Calvin’s desire to see the Reformed churches celebrate the Lord’s Supper frequently is well known. Calvin spoke of the decision of the Fourth Lateran Council to celebrate the Supper annually as “a veritable inventionof the devil.” Calvin says “it should have been done far differently: the Lord’s Table should have been spread at least once a week for the assembly of  Christians, and the promises declared in it should feed us spiritually.”

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Revelation 3:20 and the Lord’s Supper

As Riddlebarger notes:

The imagery used in Revelation 3:20 notonly invokes images of a returning bridegroom entering the chamber of his bride, it also alludes to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in anticipation of the future parousia.