Dear Family at Christ Community,

     We have the opportunity this Sunday to rejoice again through the bread and cup at what Christ has sown so that we could reap eternal life. As our worship focuses on Hosea 10, the prophet will challenge us in verse 12 to “sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” The Lord’s Table serves as a beautiful response to that call. Christ’s perfect righteousness is sown through the cross so that we might reap the steadfast love of God. Jesus’ death and resurrection breaks up the fallow ground of both our hard hearts and the grave so that we dwell in the presence of the Lord and have His spiritual blessings rain down us forevermore!

     Paul writes of this sowing and reaping in 1 Corinthians 15:42b-49:

What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

The broken bread represents the broken body of Christ sown in dishonor and weakness so that we could reap the glory and power of eternal peace with God; the overflowing cup represents the blood sown for us to reap newness of life through the resurrection of our spiritual bodies. Each Lord’s Table further nourishes our transformation into the image of Christ, the man of heaven.

     Meditate this week on how Christ sowing His righteousness makes it possible for you to live in righteousness and reap the benefits of God’s steadfast love. Reflect on Jesus sowing His perishable body to break up the fallow ground of your heart and the grave so that you could reap the benefit of walking in newness of life in the power of the resurrection. Rejoice in the reality that you can declare, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” along with Paul and the rest of the saints. Ask the Spirit to help you forgive others as you have been forgiven sowing your anger and hurt to reap compassion and freedom. Pray for others to reap this resurrected joy in Christ alone by faith alone through God’s grace alone!

In Christ,
Cameron