The Altar (part 2)

Heb. 13:10 – “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.”

Lev. 19:5-8 – “When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it or on the day after, and anything left over until the third day shall be burned up with fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is tainted; it will not be accepted, and everyone who eats it shall bear his initquity, because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people.”

The Altar (part 2)

                As Americans, especially here in California, we have this stronghold in our minds where if anything seems religious, ceremonial, or based on tradition, our brains instantly turn off. We live in an age where everything is deconstructed scientifically down to Higgs Boson particles and the evolutionary cause all behaviors. We like to take things apart and examine the pieces. When we try to disassemble communion, we just find some grape juice and bread. We yawn and say “Big deal, give me something more functional, like some good music.” We have lost respect for mysteries, because once we decompose them, we no longer see God. Well, since communion is in the Bible, we’ll keep it, but begrudgingly! It just seems so religious.

                Thus, in the last few years, I’ve been seeking for God to magnifiy communion to me. I must break this mindset that takes this sacrament the Lord commands, strips it of all meaning, and leaves His bride destitute and His priests starving. In studying church history, I’ve come across such different views such as the “Spiritual Presence” view and consubstantiation (I’m sure wikipedia could explain those if you’re curious), and I no longer see communion as an act we merely do “in remembrance of Me.” You don’t have to believe in transubstantiation to have a high view of the Eucharist (which, by the way, is a word that simply means “Thanksgiving”). There is a power in the Lord’s Supper, and it is a mystery. If we look at it under a microscope, all we see is bread, so we say it’s just there to help us remember. God must give us spiritual eyes to see the power of the body and the blood. Especially as I study the Old Covenant ceremonial law, God has been renewing my mind and heart in this area.

                Lev. 19 (above) gives instructions about eating the sacrifice in a holy manner. This reminds me of another verse: I Cor 11:27-29– “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

                In the Old Testament, eating in a worthy manner was a very natural thing: eat it within two days, not the fat, and only unleavened bread. It didn’t matter if you harbored bitterness in your heart toward your brother. As is typical, in the New Covenant, God has taken the visible and made it invisible. It doesn’t matter if we use sourdough and grape juice. In these times, eating in a worthy manner involves the position of our heart towards God and people.

                One time at a small retreat, I was in a group of about a dozen taking communion. The group was small enough that we counted out the exact number of pieces of bread and little cups. I examined my heart and found some pretty deep unforgiveness towards someone in the group. So, despite the awkwardness of feeling that people would notice, I let the bread and cup pass silently. Afterwards, they found the extra portion and tried to figure out where it came from. I kept quiet and no one figured out it was me, and still I feel that letting the elements pass was of God.

                I’ve only done this once or twice in my life, because I do not live under guilt. The point of communion is to come when you are imperfect and receive grace. When I harbor a very deep, raw offense is the only time I’ve ever refused to take communion because of the state of my heart. And it’s not because of a feeling of unworthiness (sin is sin to God), but because to do so in that moment would be to eat and drink in an unworthy manner. It’s something like Matt. 5:23-24. “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

                Do you examine yourself before taking the bread and the cup? That examining will rarely keep you away, but it will often bring repentance. And examining will certainly increase the impact of partaking, because you will recall your sin and recall God’s grace over it as you eat and drink.

                God yearns for us to partake in a worthy manner, not just because it’s tradition. He wants the Eucharist for us Protestants to be a deep, meaningful act. He wants to use it to deepen our bonds of love towards Him. He wants to increase the power of grace and our awareness of it in order to wash away sin and shame. When we drink, His blood calls out to us saying, “You are not saved by works but by Me.” When we eat, the flesh cries out, “I have been broken, the curtain has been torn, and the work is complete.” The two remind us that we are priests. They testify of God’s love for us. They say, “Be steadfast; He’s coming, again.”

                Don’t you want that? So, take it more often. Take it in your small group and not just on a Sunday. You need that constant reminder and infusion of His power. And do whatever you must to renew your mind so that it will mean something to you. Don’t let the Lord’s table just become some of the static noise of the Christian life. We have barely begun to fathom the power of this sacrament.

The Altar (part 1)

The Altar (part 1)

                Still in Lev. 19, but I’m also going to backtrack to meditate on a detail that’s been on my todo list for a while: the bread of the presence.

                The ceremonial law involved a lot of eating. Often, we imagine an entire animal burnt on the altar. Actually, the fat was dedicated to God, but most of the meat was eaten by the priest and the people offering the sacrifice (depending on the type of sacrifice). In addition, when people brought offerings of bread, they burned some, and some was eaten by the priest.

                On the table in the holy place, they daily placed bread which only the priests could eat. You’ll recall that David also had some when he was on the run from Saul, and Jesus used that story about David as an argument against the Pharisees on one of those, shall we say, “Sabbath incidents.”

                Yes, that bread. God called it the “Bread of the Presence.” Like the rest of the ceremonial law, its relevance lies in what it signifies. In the New Covenant, Jesus’ body is the bread, broken for the forgiveness of our sins. The manna in the desert also aludes to His body: Jesus even calls Himself the bread that came down from Heaven (John 6:32-33).

                In a few places in Leviticus (21:6, 22:25, and more), the sacrifices priests offer are called God’s bread. “Bread” there is used as a general term for “food.” Indeed, in some translations (like the silly NIV which I love and hate so much), they substitute “food” for “bread.” Effectively, He’s saying, “The priest brings Me breakfast in the morning and dinner at night when he burns the fat of a goat or lamb.”

                Because the priest brought God His bread, a propitiated God dwelled in the temple, and thus the temple’s bread was called the bread of the Presence. That’s my best guess at the meaning of the phrase “the bread of the Presence.”

                The priests and the priests alone ate this bread. As God’s priesthood, we also are to eat His bread: that is, His flesh. Instead of the bread of the Presence, we now have the bread of life. His Presence is now always with us through the Holy Spirit. His life flows into us through the body and blood.

                And that brings us back to Lev. 19:5-8: “When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day you offer it or on the day after, and anything left over until the third day shall be burned up with fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is tainted; it will not be accepted, and everyone who eats it shall bear his initquity, because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people.”

                If the sin offering and the bread of the Presence is Jesus, then we see echoes of these Old Covenant ceremonial laws in communion. Communion is coming to the table of the Lord, but it’s also coming to the altar of the Lord. When Jesus served as our perfect sacrifice on the cross, He became the reality foreshadowed by the Old Testament sacrifices, sacrificed on the altar of the cross. When we partake in communion, we remember, proclaim, and partake in that sacrifice. In that sense, the communion table is also an altar.

               We’ve sadly lost much of this as Protestants. During the reformation and the religious wars of the following century, the battles became so intense that the reformers and their successors cast away some good along with the bad of medieval Catholicism. One of those battles was that of transubstantiation, that in communion or the Eucharist, the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus. The Catholic Eucharist was served over an altar, often a stone altar, and those altars were sometimes built on top of the tomb or relic of a saint. When Protestants came, they saw that all as idolatry and tore down those altars. The Mass was a big deal: Protestants sometimes would die instead of take the Catholic mass, so severe were the battles of those years. And so, the so-called “pagan” altar was with a simple table in Protestant churches.

                Well, five centuries have passed. I think we can put the bitterness and bloodshed of that time behind us and examine the Scriptures. I don’t see transubstantiation taught in the Bible, but we would do well to recall the table of communion as the altar of the sacrifice. I see it through this lens based on examining the New Testament communion in light of how it is foreshadowed in the Law. Hebrews also has an interesting verse about this:

Hev. 13:10 – “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.”

                “Those who serve in the tent” here refers to the priests. And Hebrews is saying that we as Christians have an altar from which we can eat which they cannot. This is the food of the New Covenant, and I believe it refers to the body and blood of the Lord. The reality behind this symbol covers our sins through faith, but whenever we eat and drink communion, in some mystery that I don’t fully understand, it affects us supernaturally.

Tests

                Lev. 9:23-25 “ When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as uncircumcised. Three years it shall be uncircumcised to you; it must not be eaten. And in the forth year, all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to Jehovah. But in the fifth year, you may eat of its fruit to increase its yield for you: I am Jehovah your God.”

                This is a fascinating little command and exemplifies a number of Torah commands. You see, to plant a tree and not eat its fruit immediately, so far as I know, gives no real advantage in an agricultural sense. To the natural mind, obeying this command looks like another one of those ill-effects of religion: burying food that could be eaten.

                However, God threw in this statement “to increase its yield for you.” In effect, He’s saying, “If you do this, your fruit trees will bear more.” There’s no natural reason for this. It’s supernatural. It’s the same principle as giving: God wants us to be free from the love of money, so He tells us to give some away. But when we do, rather than becoming poorer, we become richer, both spiritually and financially.

                Fresh back from Japan, I had a job that didn’t really provide for me, and I was losing it, anyways. I withdrew $4,000 from a mutual fund, knowing I’d need the cash. At that time, I happened to read the story of Ananias as Sapphira in Acts 5, and I felt a conviction to give my savings away. Now I know that just because God struck them dead for not giving away all profit on a field doesn’t mean everyone who sells something has to give all their money away. The root of their problem was lying to the Spirit, anyways. I get that. But for me at that point in my life, I felt conviction to do so. Lacking a little faith, I only gave half.

                Within two months, Amazon hired me as a temporary support engineer contractor at $26/hr. I had no experience in the field, just a Cal Poly degree, and I’d had 3 years away from computers to forget everything I learned in college. And I totally bombed the interview. It was a miracle. During my first few months, I felt like I accomplished nothing and they were on the verge of firing me. About that time, I encountered another challenge to be generous to a broke and broken roommate, and I chose to pay his rent. Within two weeks, they offered to take me on permanently, with a big raise, complete with benefits.

                The theological term for this type of thing is… get ready for it… a test. Will you eat the fruit of these trees during the first 4 years? If not, He’ll provide more fruit. How do you know He will? He promised to. You have no other assurance. Do you trust God at His word? Will you lean on your own understanding or acknowledge Him in all your ways?

                These kinds of tests come throughout the Bible. The Bible begins with another test involving a tree and fruit, and the results of Adam and Eve’s failure there should give us a hint of how important God’s tests are. Here’s a few more in our modern lives:

                Don’t get sexually involved before marriage, and you will be satisfied.

                Set your mind on things above instead of an excess of TV and movies, and you won’t be bored.

                Submit yourself to spiritual authorities in your life, and you will find freedom.

                Rest in the completed work of Jesus, and you will please God. You’ll even end up producing works.

                Die, and you will find life.

                Trusting God no assurance in the natural is called… here’s another big word… faith. Faith isn’t a mystical, hard-to-define quality. It’s how much you are willing to take God at His word even when it seems foolish from natural eyes.

                The great thing about tests is that often (not always), we don’t have to sacrifice the thing we’re being tested with. For me, I gave up money in a down economy when I was about to join the unemployment party, and God provided a hundred times as much in return. When Abraham chose to offer Isaac, God stopped the knife. In the Kingdom, the only way to keep something we treasure is to lose it. And when we refuse God, often we lose it, anyways. King Saul wanted to protect his kingdom and offered sacrifices to God without a priest, so God tore his dynasty away (I Sam. 13).

                At the same time, there are times we make the sacrifice. Abraham actually had to leave his homeland, and he died without inheriting the Promised Land. The disciples had to drop their nets and follow Jesus. And while Peter was rescued from jail, James was martyred. Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia, left the love of his life in one the great, heartwrenching dramas of church history. He died in a foreign land without ever seeing her, again.

                Maybe you’re in a relationship with a guy or girl (Christian or non-Christian)  who leads you away from God rather than to Him. And He convicts you of this and you dump them. You will probably be single for a while. God has no obligation to bring you the person of your dreams within a month. We must not grow bitter if the dagger actually falls into our Isaac’s heart, because in some tests, God really does want to put something to death. However, in that exchange, you gain a greater portion of His presence and love, which is far better.

                The thing is, ultimately, we own nothing and have no rights. We are crucified and dead and slaves. Everything we own is God’s, and He has a right to do whatever He wants with it. The funny thing is though, when we live like crucified, dead slaves, God treats us like resurrected, exalted sons.