DEATH & LIFE AT THE TABLE

(Online Holy Communion link here and at bottom of this article)

Holy Communion, or the Eucharist [from the Greek word for “thanksgiving”], is a powerful means of grace. I touched on this briefly in my blog article of 3/9/2018, “Two ‘Means of Grace’ for Healing,” which you might want to read before this one. God has never stopped using means of grace, although most Christians today have stopped thinking clearly about them. But we must be very clear on the Table. For too many years Holy Communion has been treated as merely an act of ritual obedience. The Eucharist must be retrieved for what it is: a means of grace for personal spiritual growth, inner healing and, at times, spiritual warfare.

A Mystery Beyond Human Speculation

The Lord’s Supper is a mystery. Making what’s on the Table fit our theological explanations may comfort human minds, but it often robs Holy Communion of its centrality to Christian life and witness. Disputes about the virtues of one position over another have divided the Body of Christ. It might be best to approach the Table always repenting that we ever tolerated such division. Roman Catholics insist on transubstantiation, the more ancient Orthodox on objective transformation; for Lutherans it’s a sacramental union, for the Reformed a spiritual union, or for many other Protestants, a holy memorial; unfortunately, for some denominations, it was a temporary rite no longer needed. Please, for the sake of our King, put all these rationally-defended theories and viewpoints on hold and bask in the mystery. Heaven will eventually vindicate or obliterate your chosen view. But right now, and for the rest of your earthly life, be a servant subject to our Sovereign Lord, and take Him at His word. With the trust of childlike faith, regardless of your viewpoint, accept at face value what is written in the Book:

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53-57, NASB)

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.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood,” (Luke 22:19-20, NASB).

And to solidify your meditation on the Eucharistic mystery, plunge your heart deep into what Paul says about the ongoing celebration of this Holy Meal: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16, ESV, emphasis mine). Both Paul’s understanding and Christ’s clear instruction should convince us that approaching this sacred Table is physically the closest we can get to what Jesus accomplished on Calvary. In a mysterious way, to “eat this bread and drink this cup” is to both participate in and “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26, NIV).

A Table of Death

Christ’s crucifixion was a terminus, an end point for many things; His Resurrection, the beginning for many others. The Cross and empty tomb divided time into BC and AD—now renamed BCE and CE, which hasn’t altered that division. They closed the Old Testament with a New Covenant, turning a Jewish story into a global one. For every believer, they end the old life with new birth, as sacramentally portrayed in baptism.

Baptism—a one-time rite for initiation into the Christian community—is a burial of the old life (as in a watery tomb) and an emergence into a newborn life (as from a watery womb). Paul describes this in very plain language: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4, ESV). This break with the old life and entrance into the new life is demonstrated once in baptism, but our ongoing need for replacing old ways of living with Christlike living is repeatedly demonstrated at the Table. There we participate again and again in the fruits of Christ’s sacrifice and empty tomb for the rest of our earthly sojourn.

It’s highly significant that Jesus introduced foot-washing in the context of His Table. He told Peter its purpose in John 13:10 (ESV): “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” Whether or not foot-washing accompanies Holy Communion, the need for cleansing is ongoing. We bring to the Table an array of worldly attitudes and behaviors that we must part with and leave behind. They need to die, and Paul says their death is the work of Christ’s Cross: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,” (Galatians 6:14, NIV).

God is not into magic. Physically taking the Eucharist does not automatically free us from worldliness. This is why Jesus said, “you are clean, but not every one of you.” Judas missed out, despite having his feet washed by Jesus and eating the new Passover meal. An authentic participation in the body and blood of Christ at the Table is a relational act dependent on personal faith. Just as baptism is a physical confession of faith in Christ’s work on Calvary, so is partaking of the fruits of the Cross presented to us again on the Table. This makes Holy Communion a means of grace—a focal point where God’s power can put to death those vestiges of worldly ways clinging to our lives—as long as we faithfully bring them to Him, remembering that the purpose for His death was to eliminate them from our lives.

Practically, this means spending time in prayer before coming to the Eucharistic Meal, asking the Holy  Spirit to convict us in whatever areas we have participated in those dispositions and deeds that belong to the realm of darkness. It may be helpful to ask Him to show us if we have:

• any attitude we need to confess and forsake
• any behavior we need to bring to an end
• any habit or addiction from which we need to be set free
• any laziness or laxity needing banishment from our lives
• any ties we have inherited or formed that need to be severed
• any obsessions or compulsions that need to be broken
• anything else in us that needs to die

But the most profound question to be asked and answered is the one Jesus asked of the lame man, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6, ESV). This is the primary question. Do we really want to change? Are we ready to bring to His Table whatever needs to die, whatever needs to end, to cease, to stop? If we do, we will agree with whatever the Holy Spirit points out to us and make it our intention to bring them to the crucifying work of Christ represented on the Table and leave them there.

A Table of Life

If we have made our prayerful preparation and are bringing our worldly trash and baggage to leave at the Table, we will likely approach Holy Communion with tears of grief. It is right to be sorrowful that such things have been held back from our Lord, in spite of having received new birth from Him. But when what the Holy Spirit has shown us is left on the Table, we can then take His life from the Table with tears of joy and celebration. Holiness and wholeness and freedom must fill up those areas where unrighteousness and darkness and bondage have been banished.

This participation in His resurrection life is a relational act of faith in its initiation and its continuation. When you accepted Christ as your Savior, you entered salvation by new birth. But you have been exhorted to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose,” (Philippians 2:12-13, NIV). Jesus stipulated baptism as a physical faith-affirmation of new birth, and He gave us His Table as an ongoing physical faith-reminder of our need to let His resurrection life fill every area of our personal lives.

With the same heart-searching prayer and personal intention, we must come to the Table of Christ’s resurrected life, taking from Him what we need in the area of:

• attitudes and desires aligned with the mind of Him Who indwells us
• choices and behaviors that reflect “not my will but Yours be done”
• habits of devotion to prayer, Bible study and spiritual growth
• a serious concern for others and commitment to serve them
• gathering with other Christians for spiritual fellowship
• waging spiritual warfare against the realm of darkness
• whatever else God reveals that needs to come alive in us

Christian growth is based not on accumulating knowledge about God and the Scriptures, but on obeying God’s will and making Jesus Lord of our lives. We can’t do that on our own. We’re totally dependent on Christ’s resurrected life in us to empower us to live and grow as Christians. But God has given us physical means of grace to highlight our dependence on Him, and Holy Communion is one of them.

Conclusion

We may not be used to thinking of physical rituals, like baptism and Holy Communion, as truly spiritual activities. We may have a Gnostic view that sees no relationship between the physical and the spiritual, no intrinsic union between the body and the spirit. If so, have ignored God’s many uses of physical means of grace throughout Scripture, but worse, we have fail to uphold the central significance of Christ’s incarnation, bodily death and resurrection. Our faith is incarnational, or it is not the Christian faith found in the New Testament. The fruits of the Cross and of the Resurrection are on the Table, and Christ’s “in remembrance of Me,” includes His words, “my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” Embrace the mystery and participate in it.

I hope that all reading this article will discover a new way of coming to the Communion Table. I hope all will start seeing it as a return to the Cross, where Christ’s death brings us life, by putting our old life to death so that we can freely participate in His resurrected life. The following poem makes an apt conclusion, describing the approach both to the Cross and to the Table.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE CROSS

Brokenly we stumble down the twisted trails of life,
Struggling to discover peace in self-made worlds of strife,
Fighting to escape our fears of losing what we gain,
Craving for a feast of pleasures free from any pain.
Yet, upon these broad and damning roads beneath our feet,
There’s a solemn shadow that our steps may often meet.
In the setting sun of earthly dreams there stands a Cross,
Casting hope upon those paths of everlasting loss.

From its slender shade, which seems at first so cramped and tight,
Comes a whispered offer for a journey into Light.
Once, there was no exit; now a doorway stands in view,
Open for the weary passerby to walk on through.

Oh but how it looks constricted, narrow as the grave,
Waiting to convert the seeker’s soul into its slave
By its strong death-dealing nails for fixing limbs to wood:
No more wandering the world we thought we understood;
No more squandering of precious gifts that God bestows;
No more pity for ourselves for self-engendered woes;
No more place for stubbornness within our willful heart—
Selfish thrones must topple, proud dominions fall apart;
No more so-called freedom for our flesh to play the fool;
Only crucifixion, setting Jesus free to rule . . .

Harsh and strict, this pathway through the Cross of Christ appears,
Warning all who enter of its dark side’s loss and tears.
Yet, if we have thought it out and in that way have stepped,
We elude what choked our lives, rejoicing where we wept.

Such emancipation on the Cross’s other side
Opens up to us a realm extremely rich and wide.
Heaven’s light unveils a vast expanse where glory shines.
Holy wealth with pure delight and beauty intertwines.
Far beyond imagination, rapture fills our souls.
Endless joy in useful service flows from godly goals.
What were not true friendships in the world we leave behind
Change to new, real fellowship we’d always hoped to find.
On the Cross’s brighter side, our destination’s clear.
Working out His Word and will, we sense His presence near.

Jesus walked the dying side to hellish depths below
To unlock the living side, where treasures overflow:
Mysteries of faith and prayer, His Body’s bread and wine,
Light of Life, a life of Love, and love for Light Divine.
What He purchased when He hung as “nothing” on the Tree
Was to be our everything: His life in you and me.

So, don’t flee the Cross because you see its darker side.
Don’t keep running off to find a wider place to hide.
Stop and leave the worldly highway, choose no more to roam:
Make the Cross of Jesus yours, and it will lead you home.

— David L. Hatton, 4/6/1993
(from Poems Between Darkness and Light ©1994, 2014)

( For a 10-minute, online Holy Communion
 observance, go to https://youtu.be/lWQtfOM3caY )

TWO "MEANS OF GRACE" FOR HEALING

(I’m on the pastoral team of My Chains Are Gone, a ministry for liberating the porn-addicted through the truth of “a godly, creational, incarnational view of the human body.” But some time ago, I wrote “Further Help for Healing from Porn Addiction,”[1] which is included in the anti-porn section of my book "Who Said You Were Naked?" -- Reflections on Body Acceptance. In the portion called “God’s Use of Various Means of Grace,” I mention several traditionally recognized “means of grace” that can help truth penetrate the heart, because only truth can set anyone free. But aside from helping to heal people caught up in porn addiction, what I discuss below are powerful means of grace for any believer who struggles with areas in their life that need God’s intervention. This edited version of that portion focusing on only two sub-sections.)

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“When once passion takes part in the game, the human reason, unassisted by Grace, has about as much chance of retaining its hold on truths already gained as a snowflake has of retaining its consistency in the mouth of a blast furnace.”

— C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) 

Time heals no wounds, but God can heal all wounds in time. He does this in various ways, as illustrated in Christ’s ministry. Jesus frequently ordered sicknesses to depart. Sometimes he just prayed. Often He used touch. Once He smeared mud made with His saliva on a blind man’s eyes and had him go wash it out. He straightened one woman’s back by casting out a demon. Another woman grabbed His outfit to get the healing she needed.

In theology, these diverse patterns of divine blessing are called means of grace, often connected to a physical action or item, as was the staff in the hand of Moses. To use means of grace as Jesus did, we must have His attitude: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise,” (John 5:19, ESV). We are never above Christ. Which means of grace to use, and how to use it, must come on a case-by-case basis through divine guidance, as it did with our Lord.

This concept will be a faith-stretch for some. Many believers are so mesmerized by modern materialism that they entrust all aspects of health to science, technology, and the pharmaceutical industry. But behind the material world is a spiritual one, and each affects the other. This is especially true for humans, who are body-spirit beings.

All creation—especially the human body—reflects God’s glory. God uses the physical spiritually, and the spiritual physically. He’s not bound by Greek philosophy’s dualistic separation between the material and the spiritual, which guides much modern thinking. Through a sacred, wholistic approach, the following ideas, instead of dividing body and spirit, assist with healing, based on their interrelationship.

Baptism and a Sacred Use of Water

Early church fathers considered removing clothes for the nude baptism ritual to be a symbolic divestment of worldly ways for entrance into the new life of God’s Kingdom. It was a complete water bath, a sacramental sign of sins being fully washed away (Acts 22:16; Heb 10:22). Just as we enter and leave this world naked, so new converts were stripped for baptismal burial with their nakedly crucified Savior. Coming out of the water naked, just as newborns exit the womb, signified not only new birth but resurrection with the risen Christ (Rom 6:3-4), who left His grave wrappings behind when He exited the tomb. This was some of the rich theological symbolism invested in the ancient practice of nude baptism.[2]

Christ being baptized naked by John in two ceiling mosaics in Ravenna, Italy:
1) Orthodox Baptistery, c.400 AD, and 2) Arian Baptistery, c.500.

But prudery infiltrated the church. The well-documented attitude of early monks toward the tempting sight of the opposite sex points to a major cause for the disappearance of this practice. As monastic values toward the body became more popular with church leaders, they eventually supplanted the early church’s officially prescribed nude baptism. This robbed baptism of much of its symbolism and meaning as a means of grace. Perhaps pornography wouldn’t be the problem it is today, if churches had maintained the heritage of body acceptance underlying nudity in the ancient baptismal ritual.

Despite the modern absence of its original nudity component, baptism still represents a sacred cleansing from sin and identifies the believer with a death to self and a new life in Christ. Any unbaptized believer who is still struggling with porn ought to follow Christ in baptism. By its very nature, baptism blesses the body. It’s a public statement of agreement that God’s plan of salvation is for “your whole spirit and soul and body,”(1 Thes 5:23).

If you were led to faith in Christ by someone who failed to encourage you to obey this command of Christ (Mat 28:19), don’t let that stop you from being obedient now. Baptism is still a burial and still a bath; use it as such. Approach baptism as a sacred death to your old way of believing and living. Use it as a symbol of cleansing from the stains of false, worldly thinking. Let your addiction to porn be buried with Christ. Then, rise up from the water clean and fresh and alive to the goodness and sacredness of not only your own body but that of everyone else. Wash away your porno-prudish mindset. Be clothed with the mind of Christ, and forever after begin to look at the bodies of others only through His eyes.

"Divine Servant" by Max Greiner, Jr. (bronze)

The Old Testament prescribed the use of sanctified water for ritually cleansing places, items and people (Num 19:17-18). Some faith communions still practice a sacred use of water in their prayers for spiritual cleansing. Houses, rooms, closets, computers, and other things and places—even though they are physical in nature—can become spiritually “unclean” through the presence or depiction of evil things, such as pornographic pictures and videos. These defiled locations may need cleansing prayer with the symbolic application of water ritually dedicated by prayer for this special use. Sacredly applying water on a person’s body can become a strategic symbol of spiritual cleansing similar to that pictured in baptism. I heard one evangelist instruct people receiving this kind of ministry to “let this holy water put you in mind of your baptism.”

Another ritual use of water is foot washing. Oddly, many Bible teachers and church communions ignore it as a spiritual means of grace, even though Jesus implied its need (John 13:10), exemplified its practice and clearly enjoined its perpetuation: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you,” (John 13:14-15, ESV). With some preparatory instruction, a foot washing ritual might be joined with cleansing prayer as a powerful, sanctified use of water.

The sacred application of water—in praying for houses, rooms, and people—has often proved an especially effective means of grace in confronting spiritual strongholds. If there is any indication of demonic activity in your porn addiction—as there might be, because of the way pornography perverts nature and truth—try using holy water in conjunction with your prayers.

Holy Communion

Early church fathers saw the Eucharist as a continuation of baptism. Baptism declared the death of our old life in the world and the birth of our new life in Christ. Holy Communion repeats this theme by inviting us to participate in the ongoing ministry of death and life through the Bread and the Cup, which represent the work of the Cross. It repeats baptism’s symbolism by reminding us that we died with Christ and are alive in Him (Gal 2:20). But, mystically, it also provides “a participation” (1 Cor 10:16) in His sacrificial death and bodily resurrection for our ongoing spiritual nurture. All Christians should meditate upon this, as they observe Communion. But they should also realize how effectively the Table can serve as a powerful means of grace for many spiritual needs.

First, we should bring to the Table and leave with our crucified Lord those things in our lives that need to die. Then, we are enabled by His grace to take from the Table the fruits of His Cross and Resurrection and to “feed upon Him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving,” as the Book of Common Prayer exhorts. There’s still much of the world in us that needs death, and much in us that needs death to the world (Gal 6:14), to make room for more of Christ’s life. The Table invites us to a sacred rendezvous where God spiritually enables this ongoing death-and-life process to take place in us.

Holy Communion should never become a routine observance. It must always be a vital transaction of faith, where we bring more of ourselves to the Lord’s Table and take more of Christ’s life as we leave it. Eucharist is the transliterated Greek word for thanksgiving and comes from the root word charis, or “grace.” As a means of grace, how much closer to the Cross can we get than to the Body that hung there or to the Blood that was shed on it? Whether we theologically conceive of Christ’s presence as, by, with, in, or through the physical elements displayed, Jesus directly instructed us to feed upon Him (John 6:53-57), which we are to do by faith at each celebration of His Table.

The Communion Table represents Christ’s Cross quenching sin’s penalty and His Resurrection breaking through sin’s power. Together they divided historical time, ended the Old Covenant and began the New, answered the Law’s demands with grace, and drew an eternal line between death and life. Nothing gets past the Cross without death, and nothing rises up to life from that death without the power of Christ’s Resurrection.

This is why His Table—which sets before us Christ’s work on the Cross as a physical means of grace—is a place of divine deliverance and edification. Whatever has wounded your soul sexually can find healing here, even the self-inflicted damage of yielding your heart to pornographic lust.

Bring and leave on the Table all your years of porn addiction, then from the Table take Christ’s Body and Blood as spiritual nurture for your new life in Him. Leave on the Table any lie that resists the exorcism provided by rational truth, then from the Table feed upon Him who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Discard on the Table any defiled mental images from the past that haunt your memory, then from the Table feast upon “the express image of God” in the Body of His Son. As you approach this sacred Table, bring to it anything in you that needs to die. Then, with all your heart, feed upon “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Drink the Blood that Christ passionately poured out for the Church, His Bride, who—in the one-flesh relationship manifested by this Meal—is also called His Body (1 Cor 10:17). Don’t let theological fears or this Table’s mystery keep you mentally aloof from receiving its grace and power.

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Endnotes:
1. “Further Help for Healing from Porn Addiction” is now part of my book “Who Said You Were Naked?” – Reflections on Body Acceptance but is also listed on my webpage “Ending Porn Addiction.”
2. Read “Hippolytus of Rome on Nude Baptism.”