Living in the Power of the Resurrection!

It’s not over! Yes, you read that right. We don’t return to life before Easter, because every Sunday, indeed every day, is Easter day for the Christian – there’s no going back. We are not caught in some pagan cycle of continual death and rebirth, but rather one of forward movement and progression, whereby having encountered Christ as Saviour, we live in the power of His resurrection.

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus brings us total forgiveness, cleansing, deliverance – total salvation, a salvation that rest’s in Christ’s work alone. Not only that but it also grants us the power to live a new kind of life, a life empowered to say no to sin, and bear good fruit to God, with a sure and certain hope of heaven.

As Paul puts it, in baptism we were baptised into Christ’s death, and just as He was raised from the dead, so we too have been raised to walk in newness of life – wonderful!

Paul said that knowing Christ, being found in Him, and knowing the power of his resurrection was everything, indeed he counted all that he previously knew as loss – and he knew an awful lot and had an impeccable religious heritage and experience, but he said, I boast in it no more, it has no value, for Jesus is everything.

If we look to ourselves we will fall into the trap of pagan spirituality, of the constant need for death and rebirth, and be continually coming to the end of ourselves and recommiting and renewing ‘our vows.’ That is to move away from the gospel, and bring us into works.

The writer to the Hebrews reminds and exhorts us to keep looking unto Jesus because He is the author (or founder), and finisher (or perfector) of our faith. And as he says a bit later, it’s not to blazing fire, darkness, gloom and tempest, with the sound of a trumpet and voice that caused the hearers to beg, ‘no more,’ that we come, but to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, who is giving us a Kingdom that cannot be shaken!

Yes, the death and resurrection of Jesus changed everything, and if you have encountered Him, your history has been permanently changed, along with your present and your future.

Communion - Four Key Words

Four Key Words
There are four key words to keep in mind when coming to the Lord’s Table; important words that will help us in our appreciation of it.

Covenant
The first one is Covenant – “This is the new covenant established by my blood.” This is our first base – it’s God’s covenant, it’s about what he has done. The Old one couldn’t do the job because of our falleness, so God establishes a new one. The idea of a covenant then roots us in Christ’s performance NOT ours. This provides a balance to the experiential nature of Spirit-filled Christianity and represents the tension between the ages, the now and not yet of the kingdom – the sacrifice once and for all time and the full consummation of what that means in the future. God’s act in Jesus has changed the way God feels, i.e. the Passover, “When I see the blood I will Passover you.” If things are going well for you then we are reminded when we come to the table its because of what Jesus has done; if you are struggling when we come to the table then we are reminded that its not our performance but his that counts. In Israels households there were no doubt good sons and bad sons, but it was the blood of the lamb that would save each. The Communion Table levels us all.

Remember
The second Remember – “Do this in remembrance of me…” For the western mind this is no more than the recollecting of details and events with no present reality, but for the Hebrew/Jewish mind it was a remembering that engages with and relives the event. It was a reactivating of its significance, so that generations later it was their story. And in many ways it was, you see we live in an individualistic isolated world, they lived in family/community world. Their identity wasn’t in themselves it was in thier community and its history. So there great, great, great, great… grand parents story was their story, and they remebered and told in such a way. So it should be for us as we break the bread and drink the wine.

Communion
The third is Communion. The original word is translated variously in different versions and places in the Bible as communion, participation, sharing; 1 Cor. 10:17 “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
1. It is with Christ. This must be foremost, we commune with him.
2. It is with one another. Jesus died for the church, a body, his body. It expresses our unity. Sharing = a rejoicing in the common bond we have in Christ… This is where the scripture “Examine yourselves” comes in. This is not about introspection, but the fact we are part of the body, and is in regard to the body – our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are called to recognise it, honour it, and extend the same grace and mercy to it. It becomes then a meal that unites us and sustains us.

Proclamation
The fourth is Proclamation – “You proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” – what an amazing line – we proclaim both death and life at the same time! Everytime we Break Bread, eat the Lord’s Supper, we are proclaiming the reality of Christ – his life, his death, his ressurection,his coming again and in so doing we proclaim the power of the gospel to save all that will put their trust in him.