Ponder the Sacrifice of Christ

By Lee Magness

Two New Books of Meditations

These three Communion Meditations come from two new books by Lee Magness, available from Standard Publishing and Christian bookstores beginning July 1.

The two books are In the Breaking of the Bread (item 23029) and The Longest Table (item 23030). Each is 112 pages, with 52 two-page, front-and-back meditations. Each meditation includes a Scripture reading, Lee”s thoughts, and a prayer. Cost for each book is $9.99.

Order these books through Standard Publishing at (800) 543-1301 or www.standardpub.com.

 

 

THE LONGEST TABLE

“When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table” (Luke 22:14).

The longest table I had ever seen was my grandmother”s Thanksgiving dinner table. It stretched through the living room of her farmhouse and across the dining room. It was so long there was a place for all her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was so long there was room for folks far from home, visitors from Germany, from Japan. It was so long that there was a place for the elderly, broken man who had been Grandmother”s first husband. And it was so long that it was never quite full until absent family members were brought back, either by fond remembrance or by an everyone-talk-at-once phone call. It was Thanksgiving at Grandmother”s house, and it was the longest table I had ever seen.

But I came to know better. I came to know that this table is the longest table in the world. It too is a Thanksgiving table, and I know now just how far it stretches. I have sat at this table in many states of the Union and many countries of Europe, in Thailand and Turkey, in India and Israel, in Egypt and China and Papua New Guinea. It is so long that there is room for the well-to-do in Westminster Abbey, for the workaday women of Athens, for peasant farmers in India. And in each of those places there was room for me. There is always room for the repentant, relatives in Christ who haven”t always acted like they were related to us or to him. And this table is never quite full until we have recalled to our minds all those we have sipped with and supped with, now far from home, but never far from this longest table.

So today we think not only of our Lord. We think also of the guests, those we see and those we can”t quite see but remember, sitting just around the corner in Grandmother”s dining room, just over the curve of the earth, at this longest table.

God, help us to remember just how long this table is, this table at which you long to have us sit, through Jesus, Amen.

 

 

ALL THE BLOOD IS HIS

“Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God . . . because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:11, 12, 14).

On a rocky plateau in the Yucatan peninsula lies an ancient city that drew people with the power of a magnet. It still does. The place is Chichen Itza. This magnificent Mayan city was the center of a great civilization, a center for social and cultural gatherings, for civic activities, athletic competitions, and scientific investigations, all in the context of religious observance.

But Chichen Itza was also a bloody place””not the blood of foreign invasion or intertribal warfare, but of human sacrifice. This part of Mayan religion touched every activity, every aspect of their lives. Even the famous ball games of the Mayans””striking balls through stone rings mounted high up on stone walls, without the use of hands or feet””ended in human sacrifice. The only question is whether it was the loser or the winner who was sacrificed.

The temple in Jerusalem was also a bloody place. Priests slaughtered animals and laid them on the altar as sacrifices to God. But there was one sacrifice that ended all other sacrifices, the sacrifice of the high priest himself. Even now some people call the Lord”s table an altar, reminding us of the inescapable connection between Communion and sacrifice.

We come dragging no lamb or goat, only ourselves, remembering Jesus who died not as the loser but as the victor. And we recognize in his sacrifice the sacrifice that ended the other sacrifices. But just as surely as the sacrifice of Jesus ended animal sacrifices, so his sacrifice was the beginning of sacrifices, the living sacrifices that are our lives. This is a bloody place we come to today. But all the blood is his.

O God, we thank you for that final, sufficient sacrifice, for Jesus our high priest. Now we ask that you accept the sacrifice of our lives, through Jesus, Amen.

 

 

ALL OF US

“Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Corinthians 10:16, 17).

This is not just a pageant, this breaking of the bread, this outpouring of the cup. It is a feast for us to participate in””all of us. This is not a concert or a lecture or a demonstration, not something done to us or for us. It is something done by us””all of us.

If it is in any sense a drama, it is a drama in which we are not the onlookers, not the applauders. We are not the audience, but the actors””all of us. And our play has its props, but they number only three. There is the loaf””his body broken for us””all of us. And there is the cup””the cup of the new covenant in his blood poured out for us””all of us. But there is also the table, not an altar for priests and presbyters, not a stage for the star alone, but a table, reminding us that we are the guests, that we have our part to play in the play””all of us.

And who is this all-of-us who have come to this table? We are migrant workers and business executives and shopkeepers. We are unemployed. We are children, elderly, single, married. We went through grade school, we have a PhD. We are rich, and . . . not rich. And we have all-of-us come to this table because someone invited us and died for us and rose for us and lives for us. But aren”t we sinners? Yes, all of us. The same all-of-us sinners he saved.

The one who gave us himself has given us parts in his great drama of redemption. We are not the audience, we are the actors””all of us.

God, thank you for inviting us to share the loaf and the cup, and thank you for inviting us to sit around the table, together, all of us, through Jesus, Amen.

 

 

Lee Magness is the Vera Britton Professor of Bible at Milligan College in Tennessee.