The Table

What kind of picture or symbol comes to mind when you think of “Christianity” or “church”? Do you think of a building with a steeple? Do you think of the cross? Do you think of that funny little fish symbol stuck to the bumper of the car in front of you? Really, what comes to mind? I think perhaps the most often neglected visual image within all of Christianity may be… a Table. Have you ever thought about that? Most church buildings have them, often right up front in very prominent positions. Often it is engraved with the words of Jesus, “Do this in remembrance of me”, reminding us of the last supper that he shared around a table with his disciples. Yet, how often do we really think about the Table as a visual representation of God’s intent for his people? I know what happens around my table at home. It’s the place where the family sits down for meals… where we talk over our day… where we connect with each other. We’ve played games around our table. We’ve hosted friends and family over and shared coffee at the table. We’ve laughed and cried at the table. Table evokes feelings of warmth, fellowship and intimacy. What, then, does this tell us about the heart of God?

God invites us to His Table! As we have been celebrating all month long… and actually as we celebrate it every Sunday… God invites us to His Table in our weekly practice of Communion. It is a reminder that God wants more than anything to know us, to have a relationship with us and to fellowship with us on a very personal level. Jesus instituted the Supper during the Passover feast in the hours before his arrest and crucifixion. This last purposeful act of Jesus has forever been memorialized in our assembling around the Table to “remember” what his sacrifice has done for us. Not only that, we also look forward to his coming again when we will enjoy a fellowship around the Table with Him that we can only imagine today! The Apostle Paul said that, “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The Lord’s Supper is a testimony to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and it is enjoyed each week by Christians in hopeful expectation of his coming again. We rejoice in the death, burial and resurrection, proclaiming that gospel to the world. And we look forward to eating it one day with Jesus in the fullness of the Kingdom of God!

"Doing Church" in the 21st century... the fifth act

I was struck today from something I am reading on the thinking of David Lipscomb and James A. Harding.  It comes from Kingdom Come published by Leafwood publishers and is written by a professor friend of mine, John Mark Hicks and a co-author, Bobby Valentine.  On their chapter concerning Lipscomb and Harding’s emphasis on the importance of Bible study, the authors elaborate on an increasingly popular analogy that I found pretty insightful.

 

Living the story of God is like performing a drama.  Our life in Christ is analogous to a group of Shakespearean disciples who want to perform a newly discovered six-act play by Shakespeare.  But the fifth act is missing.  We only have the first four acts and the last one.  Suppose, however, these disciples wanted to perform the play.  How can they perform it without the fifth act?  They will have to improvise.  In order to do so, they would have to “live and breathe” the [other] works of Shakespeare.  By knowing the mind of Shakespeare and thoroughly understanding the extant acts, they are able to improvise the fifth act in a way that is faithful to the other acts.

 

Christian discipleship is like performing the fifth act.  Scripture bears witness to the mind of God in Christ.  We have the first act—Creation—and thus know God’s intent for his world.  We have the second act—Israel—and thus know how God intended his people to be a light for the Gentiles.  We have the 3^rd act—Christ—and thus we see how the Son exegetes the Father (cf. Jn 1:18).  We have the 4^th act—the early Church—and thus know how the church in the New Testament lived and communally practiced the values of God in their time.  And we know the 6^th act—the new heaven and new earth—and thus know God’s goal for his people.  We are the fifth act [the modern church] and we currently perform that act best as we imaginatively enter into the mind of God in Christ.  We seek to perform the fifth act in a way that is faithful to Scripture and faithful to how God has progressively worked in history to establish his kingdom.

 

Their conclusion was that our ability to faithfully improvise and perform this “fifth act” depends directly upon our “living and breathing” the works that we do know… the writings of Scripture.  We come to know the mind of God through our knowledge of Scripture… and without that knowledge we are left wandering aimlessly in this life.  Pretty insightful, I thought…

Another "Political Question" of the day...

Is it a good idea for the current #2 to offer the #2 position to the current #1… especially given the fact that the current #1 knows he is in the #1 position and not in the #2 position?  What does this say about the #2?  Just asking…

Whew!

I have to say that I was a little relieved this week with the way the vote turned out on "Super Tuesday 2." I had been afraid that it would be over and the daily news cycles would return to reporting important things like golfers hitting hawks in the sky (see FoxNews coverage of Tripp Isenhour). But NO... thank goodness!! The voters came out of their holes on Tuesday... voted... and it looks like we're going to have at least seven more weeks of Winter... and campaigning! Hillary made an outstanding showing (at least that's what the media outlets are reporting). She didn't actually make any headway either in the delegate count nor in popular vote, but she did do well enough to stay in the race. WHEW! That was close. It was almost over. Now we can sit back and enjoy seven more weeks of in-fighting, mudslinging and name-calling. It has already begun. Hillary's camp blasted Obama this week, likening him to "Ken Starr" (is that such a bad thing?) and one of Obama's staffers responded by calling Hillary a "Monster". Oh, doesn't it take you back to jr. high school?
Well, I'm looking forward to a lot more excitement keeping up with all of the fun. You know what they say, "It's not over till.... its over." I for one, don't wish for it to be over any time soon. Its too much fun.

The Cup & the Bread

Since the ancient days of the early church, Christians have regularly gathered around the Lord’s table to remember the incredible sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross through our partaking of the cup and the bread.  These emblems serve as an awesome reminder of his body and blood which was broken and shed for us.  Where would we be without the forgiveness of sin?  At Washington Street we are reminded of that each Sunday as continue to gather around that table.  Beginning this Sunday and going through Easter we are going to be examining anew this ancient tradition and this wonderful feast… let me encourage you to use it as an opportunity to invite friends and family to be with us.  They will hear the good news and we will all be challenged anew by this incredible sacrifice!

 

Political Thoughts...

I fear that tomorrow may be it for this preliminary campaign season. It has certainly been one worth watching these last many months. You know me… there are few things that interest me more than faith and politics (the two things you’re never supposed to talk about at parties since you might offend somebody.) Oh, well. I’ve never been real popular anyway. To be honest, I have been pretty disgusted this election cycle with the lack of a real good candidate that I felt like I could support. I eventually came around to Fred Thompson just in time to hear his concession speech. With that disappointment, I found myself without a real candidate that I felt like I could vote FOR. Resisting the urge just to cast a vote AGAINST another candidate (and since there were so many I would vote against anyway) I decided not to vote in the primary… for the first time in a long time!

Now it looks like McCain has the nomination all but sealed up on the Republican side… BUT the Democratic side has been the real one to watch this year! Who would have ever imagined this time last year that anyone but Hillary was even going to come close? She has been the clear front-runner since shortly after the last election in ’04. Everyone all but assumed that she would be the nominee. And out of nowhere comes this vibrant, energetic, young unknown running on a platform of little else other than the catch-word “change”. Sounds a whole lot like another vibrant, energetic, young unknown who came out of nowhere (Hope, AR) to achieve the nomination of his party and ultimately even the presidency… in 1992, remember?

So who will it be… Hillary or Obama? Tomorrow may very well be the defining moment… “Super Tuesday II” as the papers are dubbing it. Will Obama continue his momentum and deliver Hillary a knock-out blow? Or will the “come-back kid’s spouse” make a come-back herself and stay in the game for another round? Who knows? It is exciting to watch, though. I’m not sure who I’m rooting for… Obama or Hillary? My beliefs usually fall more in with the traditional tenets of the Republican party, but I’m not a real huge McCain supporter either. So, what to do? I actually believe that Obama will be the tougher candidate for the Republicans in the Fall, so I guess that just leaves me… ambiguously ambivalent. One thing for sure, though. I’ll be watching and listening to the results tomorrow night… I just can’t help it.