Eat and Drink for Tomorrow We Die

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“… But you never ask for help from the One who did all this. You never considered the One who planned this long ago. At that time, the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, called you to weep and mourn. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse. But instead, you dance and play; you slaughter cattle and kill sheep. You feast on meat and drink wine. You say, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has revealed this to me: “Till the day you die, you will never be forgiven for this sin.” That is the judgment of the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
Isaiah 22:11b-14 NLT

We continue our thoughts on Isaiah’s chapter 22 oracle, reading about what he said would happen in Jerusalem. This appears to be a snapshot of events in Jerusalem on the day he wrote the oracle, with the people dancing, playing, feasting, and getting drunk, rather than responding in tears and remorse. They followed the age-old philosophy, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” Sadly, they responded to God’s warning with reckless pleasure. We pilgrims are aware, I’m sure, that one of the signs of a hardened heart is treating serious spiritual matters lightly. Then as now, cultures often respond to uncertainty by seeking greater entertainment, more possessions or constant distraction. It portrays a flippancy that seems inbuilt within human beings, and we find it still alive and well in our societies today. We may have even behaved similarly ourselves. What about someone who gets to the end of the month and finds they have some money left over in their bank account? Perhaps, instead of putting it away for a “rainy day”, they go and spend it on something useless. A mild example, I know, but it illustrates the mentality present in many people.

Of course, some will follow something Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 8:15, “So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way, they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun”. Over the page, he wrote, “So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this!” (Ecclesiastes 9:7). But to counter a life based on such thoughts, Jesus told the parable of the Rich Fool, which started with the warning, “… Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own” (Luke 12:15). I’m sure we all know the parable, but there was a rich farmer who, one year, reaped a bumper crop. He tore down his barns so that he could build new and bigger ones, in which he could store all his wheat and other goods. The account continues with the Rich Fool saying, “And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”” (Luke 12:19). The next two verses conclude the story with Jesus saying, “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God”. So, there is nothing implicitly wrong with “eating, drinking and enjoying life” as long as it is in line with God’s will. Some people, of course, have a view of God that he is a killjoy who sternly and puritanically forbids all sorts of pleasure. But nothing can be further from the truth. Jesus Himself enjoyed a meal with His disciples. We read in Luke 5:33, “One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”” And in Luke 7:34, Jesus said, “The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’” The key in all that we do is the conclusion drawn by Jesus when He referred to having a “rich relationship with God”.

As we look back in Genesis, we read how God created man and a Garden that He planted with beautiful trees that produced all sorts of delicious fruit. But if that was not pleasure enough for Adam, God then created the birds and animals, and involved the man in their naming. And then came the moment when God created a woman to be his companion. Was that received with grudging acceptance or a “Wow” that reverberated around the Garden? I’ll let you, my readers, be the judge of that! But in the act of creation, God introduced the principle of pleasure. Whether delicious fruit of eating and drinking, it is all part of God’s plan.

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves how we respond when God provides direction or conviction. Is it with flippant distraction, or will it be with repentance? The Judeans got it wrong, but that is no reason why we should. Our Heavenly Father knows what is best for us, and He delights in rewarding us when we respond to Him with trust and obedience.

Dear Father God. Thank You for all the good things that You have given us. You blessings never cease. Amen.

Holy Communion

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.” For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NLT

Today’s verses are well known in Christian denominations, the Holy Communion, or Lord’s Supper, being the highlight of a service. The Roman Catholic denomination has a service called “Mass” in which they share in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But regardless of where they worship, all Christians celebrate a time when they remember the Lord’s Last Supper, in accordance with His instructions. Paul’s account in our verses today omits the events that preceded those momentous words of Jesus, while the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) capture the poignant drama of that fateful evening meal. 

There are two facets of the Lord’s Supper that I want to dwell on today. The first is that Jesus said, through Paul’s words, “Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it”. Jesus never intended for His people to delay celebrating this occasion, setting it apart as a special service perhaps four times a year. Some churches make the Lord’s Supper an integral part of their weekly meetings. Others only have such a service at irregular intervals, when someone remembers. But this is a very solemn and important part of a Christian’s life, because when we share the Communion with each other, it brings together the very essence of why we are Christians in the first place. There is the significance of the bread, being shared from, ideally, a single source such as a roll or a loaf, depending on the size of the congregation, and, nevertheless, primarily remembering that Jesus willingly sacrificed His body for us. This then captures the importance of being together in unity and spirit, and in the presence of the Lord. Then we have the cup of wine, which we share, as we remember Jesus’ death, where He shed His blood for the salvation of all who believe in Him. Today, it is sad in a way that we have abandoned the single source of the bread and the shared cup in favour of sanitised alternatives, which even take the form of a small plastic cup with two seals, with a small wafer of something sandwiched between the two and above the container of some form of juice. Where is the oneness in that? But the Lord’s Supper is an act of remembrance, and how we share it must never detract from the importance of Jesus and all that He has done for us. 

Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you”. We should note the word “given,” as many services substitute “broken” for it. Jesus was once described by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God (John 1:29), a statement with special significance because of the Passover lamb. We read in Exodus 12:46, “Each Passover lamb must be eaten in one house. Do not carry any of its meat outside, and do not break any of its bones”. John took great care in his Gospel to relate this account of the first Passover lamb with Jesus, in John 19:36: “These things happened in fulfilment of the Scriptures that say, “Not one of his bones will be broken.”” Why so many leaders choose to say, “This is my body, which was broken for you” escapes me. 

The second saying of Jesus was cataclysmic in its impact. The Jews, up to this point, had known only one covenant —the law of Moses. But Jesus came to bring a New Covenant, as we read in Matthew 26:26-27, “And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many”—the meaning of this we will consider on another day.

For pilgrims everywhere, the Last Supper is a time of remembrance, preparing our hearts through the confession of our sins and reminding us of the relationship between Christians both inside and outside our churches and fellowships. But above all, we remember all that Jesus did for us at Calvary. He died in our place, taking on Himself the punishment we deserved to redeem us from our lives of sin. And now we can stand before Father God wearing a cloak of righteousness given to us by Jesus. This is such an amazingly loving act that we can never forget it. Ever.

Dear Lord Jesus. How can we ever forget Your ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, where You died for us. We are so grateful and look forward to the time when we can join you in Heaven. Amen.

Ceremonies

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“At this time John the Baptist was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there; and people kept coming to him for baptism. (This was before John was thrown into prison.) A debate broke out between John’s disciples and a certain Jew over ceremonial cleansing.”
ohn 3:23-25 NLT

Oh, don’t we love ceremonies. The wedding services with all the frills and fancies. The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The graduation programme at our colleges and universities. The church prize givings. Naming ceremonies for new born babies. Funeral ceremonies for those who have recently died. Baptismal ceremonies for new believers. The familiar acts incorporating rituals is somehow a natural part of societies everywhere and they bring a degree of comfort in times of distress, or joy and happiness in times of celebration. Human beings love a ceremony and I’m sure we could list large numbers of ceremonies that happen today, but also in ancient civilisations. The Jewish faith in Jesus’ day demanded involvement in many ceremonies. The argument with John’s disciples took place over the ritual washing of hands, and Book of Leviticus has many verses pertaining to washing. In some cases a practical as well as spiritual purpose was behind them, but the Jews of Jesus’ day had made it a ritual with little spiritual meaning. 

We believers can sometimes fall into the trap of replacing spontaneity with a ceremony. For example, it’s easier sometimes to read a pre-prepared prayer rather than make up one of our own from our hearts. Making the sign of the cross is good when we consciously know what we are doing, but if it is an automatic gesture, what is the benefit of that? Sadly, the intent behind the ceremonial washing of hands had become a ritual much followed and loved by the orthodox Jews of those days. But Jesus was having none of their hypocrisy. We read in Mark 7:6-7, “Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God'”.

But not all ceremonies are bad or useless. The ceremony of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, comes to mind, a ceremony that is very precious to us pilgrims. Paul wrote, “For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it”” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). We take part in a sacrificial meal, eating the bread and drinking the wine, in remembrance of our Lord and Saviour. The Last Supper is probably the most significant ceremony for a Christian today. 

If we pilgrims find ourselves in a church of fellowship where ceremonies and rituals are involved, then perhaps we should pause and think sometimes about what we are doing. Have we become caught up in a meaningless ritual or is there something here that helps me connect with God? Ceremonies can provide a platform for our interaction with God but they can also be a hindrance to our praise and worship.

Dear Father God. Please help us to to worship You “in spirit and truth” unhindered by man-made ceremonies and rituals. In Jesus’ name. Amen.