Dear Family at Christ Community,

We approach the Lord’s Table this Sunday as a people eternally united by two historic realities: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The bread and cup serve as tangible reminders of our sure unity in Christ alone. The broken bread points us back to the death of Christ at the hands of selfishly corrupt religious leaders and fearful but tyrannical government officials. It also signifies God’s sovereign faithfulness to use the evil of principalities and powers for the deliverance of His people from the power of sin and death. The cup points us back to the blood poured out from the wounds inflicted by wicked men filled with hatred for peace and goodwill toward those not like them. It also signifies God’s new covenant promise to turn our stony hearts into hearts tendered to love both Him and our neighbors of all kinds. All that sin and death rent asunder—us from God, us from each other, us from ourselves, and us from Creation—Christ reunited through his broken body and shed blood!

As we examine our hearts in preparation for partaking of the table, we would do well to consider again Jesus’ prayer for us in John 17:20-26:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Note that he longs for his people to live in unity as a reflection of their unique identity as God’s people. The unity of God’s people serves a missional purpose: the aroma of our love for one another based on Christ’s death and resurrection draws those who dwell in darkness into his marvelous light!

Take time to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you your beliefs and/or actions that place the unity for which Christ died and rose again at risk. Have the courage to repent and pursue reconciliation where necessary. Ask the Spirit to guide you in living out the eternal reality in which you now walk in union with Christ and with God’s people. Use the means of grace offered to you in the gathering of God’s people to strengthen you to be faithful and obedient for God’s glory. Take joy in the miraculous possibilities afforded to us all in the death and resurrection of Christ as represented in the elements of the Lord’s Table!

In Christ,
Cameron