The Passover and Communion

It was in the previous quarterly issue of our church devotional, Rejoice, that a daily meditation struck me more strongly than some do. I believe it was based on Exodus 12:43-49.

What really struck me about this particular set of instructions for keeping the Passover, as there are several, starting with the original one in Exodus 12:1-20, was its particular focus on those other than The Children of Israel. In the first sentence of this particular message received by Moses and his brother Aaron from The Lord, it is stated, "no foreigner shall eat of it." This included slaves and servants (Verse 45). However, our God in his abiding mercy and grace, did make provision for those referred to here as aliens who might want to celebrate the Passover. In verse 48 it states that if all of their males were circumcised, these families could celebrate the Passover and henceforth be regarded as natives of Israel, or  "the land", as it states here. However, the same verse ends by saying, "no uncircumcised person shall eat of it." The instructions wrap up with the statement in verse 49: "there shall be one law for the natives and for the aliens who reside among you."

There is one other point here that I believe we ought to remember even today as non-Jews, and that is what is stated in verse 47: “the whole congregation of Israel shall celebrate it." We know, from what is taught in the New Testament, that we as believers, Christians, The Church, are the present day version of the "congregation of Israel."

Now, this is a reflection, a blog, not a theological treatise, so I am not going to go into heavy-duty explanations and proof-text all of my points. However, I think they are opinions that are shared by many or they would not continue to be passed on 2000 years after the beginning of the church.

Now, the parallel to The Passover which I want to draw, as indicated in our title, is with our celebration as The Church of Communion.

If we are compared to the children of Israel, I think Passover is compared to Communion. Both are celebrations of deliverance from evil, from death. Historically, it was Israel's celebration of deliverance from Egypt and from having their firstborn sons slaughtered by the Angel of Death that struck the Egyptians that first Passover night. For us in The Church, it is a celebration of Christ's deliverance of us from evil and death through his own sacrificial death and then victorious resurrection.

Therefore, it is on this basis that I believe we draw parallels between regulations regarding the Passover and how we celebrate Communion. In the first place, as mentioned in the paragraphs above, what is stated here should give us pause as to our feeling of needing to celebrate communion. I don't think it is an option. If we are believers, we ought to take part in communion on a regular basis.

However, the other point that I wanted to dwell on more here was with respect to what I began to discuss at the outset of this writing. This is the reference to aliens celebrating Passover. In our context, I think this would compare to non-Christians. They were told they needed to be circumcised if they wanted to celebrate Passover. Is this support for our stipulating that individuals need to be baptized before celebrating communion? Indeed, this is a practice that has been followed by the church for most of its history as far as I know. I think it is only after the middle of the last century that some churches began to open baptism to anybody who was a believer, whether baptized or not. The older more orthodox churches, including the Catholic and Anglican, certainly do not do this.

Jesus has commanded us to be baptized, just as he told us to celebrate The Lord's Supper. It is a sign of our repentance and forgiveness, the washing away of our sins. Circumcision was a sign of making a commitment to become one of the Children of Israel. Perhaps we need to think more seriously of commitment to The Church. I think there are some who would say that expectations in this respect have been considerably diluted in the last number of decades in the church's effort to appeal to many and boost its numbers, particularly in North America. However, for a church to be pure and effective, as with any organization, I think there need to be certain expectations and that includes one of commitment. If a person cannot be bothered to be baptized, or does not take that command seriously, are they ready to be part of the church? Will they be committed enough to be the kind of disciple Jesus wants them to be?

2013 12 09 A Calling or a Test of Obedience

Before turning in at night I generally read something devotional. For some time my night-time reading has been from Days of Praise, a quarterly booklet published by the Institute for Creation Research. For a publication coming from a science organization I have always been impressed by how well these scholars know their Bible. They even delve into context and original languages.

So it was that on December 9 I opened the booklet to the corresponding date to read “God’s Ways are Best”. The first sentence hit me square between the eyes: “The leading of God is not always clear to our understanding or satisfying to our pride, but it is always directed to God’s glory and our good.”

When I was 18, spending the summer working in a factory, I clearly felt God’s calling to go into medicine. It was not something I had ever given consideration to as a career choice. Now, moving into the years when one considers retirement I began to think, if God called me into this, he should be letting me know when to stop practicing.

When I read the sentence above and the accompanying story about Elijah obeying God’s will what I realized was that it was probably not the career that was the thing God was interested in. It was a test of my obedience.

This realization lifted somewhat of a burden from my heart. As I went through the process of getting into medicine and through the rigorous years of education before finally coming out as a qualified Family Physician, then later to become a psychiatrist, there has been a recurring question in my mind as to why I was so called.  To me, it seemed that if God had called me into this field, I should be making something special of it. Yet, it seemed to me that I was never more than quite an ordinary front-line physician. I often wondered if I had taken the wrong turn somewhere, if I had missed some subsequent direction or even been disobedient.

Through the years there had been bumps in the road, especially getting into and through medical training. I began to question the calling because things did not seem to be working out. Now, it did not seem to be clear when I should retire. Through all of this, even now, I made decisions without obvious divine direction. However, they were always made with prayer and reflection on the matter in the light of The Word, sometimes in consultation with other believers. This reminded me of an adage I have never really liked, as it always seemed to me to smack too much of modern individualism: “God helps those who help themselves”. Now I saw that God may have given me direction in the larger things but left me to work out my direction otherwise.

As the sentence read, God’s leading would be his glory.  If I obeyed, God would use what I did to bring him honour. I think I have been faithful in that area. I have lived out my Christian witness in many ways. He also promised that it would be for my good if I learned to be obedient. Indeed, I have had a very good life. Again, there have been times of testing and self-questioning, but overall, my wife and I believe we are very blessed. Ultimately, the sequence of this sentence is, I believe, carefully chosen or even inspired by the Spirit. What we do is important firstly for God’s glory, only secondly, for our good. Those are the blessings of obedience.

THE BEATITUDES XI

THE BEATITUDES XI

Today's text continues somewhat the verse from the previous beatitude. It really just expands or builds on it:

5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me. 5:12 Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.

Whereas verse 10 talked about being persecuted for righteousness, this verse is more specific. A person can be fairly good, some might even say righteous, in the eyes of the world. This might even be said of a non-believer, a non-Christian. A person who is so good might make others jealous and 'persecute' them.

However, we have talked about true righteousness, complete righteousness, being only that which God can give us. We can't earn it on our own. To attain, to get that, requires, necessitates, belief in Jesus and what he did. So, Jesus ties this together by adding here to verse 10 that it is when we are persecuted because of our connection to Him that we will be blessed. Furthermore, it is when people tell lies about us, accuse us falsely, because of Jesus, that he is talking about. As Jesus' chief disciple Peter wrote later (2:20): "What glory is it if, when you are criticized for your faults, you take it patiently? But if, when you do well and suffer for that, you take that patiently, that is acceptable to God." In other words, if you get in trouble for your own wrongdoing, there is no merit, nothing praiseworthy in that. It's only if you get in trouble for doing well, that God rewards you.

You see, when you do well, do what is right and others around you have not, it bothers their conscience. It points out their ways of error. It gets on their nerves. They understandably don't like it. They don't like to be 'shown up' as we say. So, they get angry and want to get back at you. They can't really say anything bad about you because you have done nothing bad. So, they turn to insulting you, or saying things falsely, lying, about you. They have no other option, no other way to express their anger. This is what happened to Jesus and his earlier followers as we can read in our Bible. Time and again it is recorded that their persecutors brought false charges against them because they really had nothing actually negative to say about them.

Jesus then goes on to try to comfort his hearers by saying they are in good company if this happens to them. The prophets, the religious leaders of Israel's own past, were also persecuted for doing God's will, doing the right thing. Jesus refers to this more than once. Just a few days before his own death, he looks over the city of Jerusalem, the city of Zion, and accuses its inhabitants of killing the prophets and other messengers god sent to them and then says (Matt. 23:29-39 but especially vs. 37), "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets, and stone those who are sent to you, how often would I have loved to gather your children together, just like a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not let me! Look, [because of that] your house [your temple] is left desolate [empty]."

There is another way of looking at this. If we never get persecuted, if no one is convicted enough by our behaviour or our words to make false accusations against us, we should perhaps be asking ourselves, Is our life really showing the Light of Jesus?' Are we speaking out against the wrongs of this world, for what Jesus wants done in this world? If we really were, we would probably sooner or later get persecuted.  Then we will be rewarded for really doing what we ought. Then we can be glad and rejoice because we will know we are making an impact, we are having the effect on our world that Jesus wants us to have on it. We are being the salt and light that he wants us to be. Those are figures of speech that come from a subsequent passage in Matthew.

THE BEATITUDES X

THE BEATITUDES X

As some of my readers know, I have been to China twice for two weeks each trip, traveling to three or four different cities. We met Christian brothers and sisters; some of you are reading this. We also went to Christian churches every Sunday. Now, we hear Christians are still being persecuted in China. So why did we never hear about that in our visits? How come we never heard about all the terrible things the Falun Gong members say the government is doing to them? Here in Vancouver, this being the democratic country of Canada, the Falun Gong has the right of free speech. For years they protested in front of the Chinese Embassy. You could see their posters on the walls of the embassy all the time when you drove by, as it was on the main street from the airport to downtown so almost everyone coming to Vancouver saw it.

Jesus said:

5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

I think the Falun Gong came under persecution because they protested about something and the government became worried about how much power they seemed to have. How were they able to stage, to put on, such a big protest? Governments are always worried about power. They only think in political terms so they could not conceive of people actually banding together for other purposes.

Are Christians being persecuted for their faith, their righteousness? I think many times nowadays, both in China and elsewhere, so-called Christians may not be persecuted if they keep their faith to themselves. They can talk about it with one another. They can even have a church. However, if they begin to speak out because of their righteousness, because of their Christian beliefs, about bad things the government is doing, or problems in society, they will be persecuted.

A Chinese lawyer was once arrested because he was defending the underprivileged in China against the government. His clients had problems like being evicted from their homes to make way for developers, or for becoming ill because of pollution from state sponsored industrial and chemical plants.

I have to wonder if some of the churches we attended in China are allowed to be because they don't do or say anything that offends the government. Is that how it should be? In fact, some are saying that the totalitarian government in China (it is really not communist anymore) accept people being Christian because they realize they are good citizens. Good citizens, in their terms, means not disturbing the peace. If we really stand up for what we should believe as Christians, if we would really and totally follow what Christ taught, we would probably be persecuted. Even in North America. 

Jesus said, "Whoever therefore shall confess me before others, that person I will also confess before my father in heaven. But whoever shall deny me before others, that person I will also deny before my Father in Heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33). Those are strong words. We can all do better at speaking out for our faith.  Speaking out for our fait does not just mean telling people 2 repent and be saved. It also means telling them how to the disciples, how to live as Christians. That is a whole different story and expectation. If we do that, then Jesus and the father God will truly say the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to us. 

THE BEATITUDES IX

THE BEATITUDES IX

I originally wrote this on August 8 2008. This is supposed to be a most auspicious day for the Chinese: 8 8 8. For those readers who aren't Chinese it's because the words for the number eight, ba in Mandarin and paat in Cantonese, sound similar to the words for prosperity, fa in Mandarin and faat in Cantonese. This date, like last year's, 7/7/07, is an extremely popular wedding date, and planners say they are expecting people to choose 9/9/09 as well, as the word for the number nine in Mandarin sounds like the word for longevity. Eight is considered the luckiest number though (I've also heard some funny statements when an English-speaking person put the wrong tone on the word, spelled 'zhyou' in English, and it came out sounding like 'alcohol' rather than 'nine' or 'longevity', 'long-life'.

So, maybe for me as an Anabaptist (person who believes in adult baptism) it's timely (lucky?) that the beatitude I get to write about today is this one:

5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

You see, if you haven't already learned this about us Anabaptists or Mennonites, we consider peacemaking to be one of the highest virtues. However, we are far from perfect in carrying peacemaking out. In fact, sometimes it looks as though we are so bent, so stuck, on keeping peace that when a dispute arises, rather than go through the possibly conflicted struggling un-peaceful route of solving the problem, we just walk away. Maybe that is part of the reason there are something like 40 branches of Mennonites, all thinking they know best! I guess we are not unique in that area – how many kinds of Baptists and Lutherans and Pentecostals are there, to name just a few other denominations or types of Christianity?

Yes, our ancestors, our faith forefathers and mothers, when they started to study the Bible in Switzerland in the 16^th century, realized that Jesus had come to make peace. Even before he was born, his mother, inspired by the same Holy Spirit that made her miraculously pregnant as a virgin, said that her child would, "guide our feet into the way of peace" (Luke 1:79). When he was born, the angels sang from the skies to the shepherds on the hillside outside of Bethlehem, "On earth, peace, goodwill toward men" (Luke 2:14). Before Jesus went to the cross to give his life for us he told his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you" (John 14:27). When he rose from the dead, his greeting to his disciples became, "Peace be unto you" (John 20:19, 26).

If Jesus came to bring jus peace, the first Anabaptist church reformers reasoned, they figured, his followers must also be peacemakers. Indeed, if you study church history, the history of Christianity, you will see that for the first three hundred years, Christians did not join the army or partake in violence. It was only when the Roman Emperor Constantine apparently became a Christian that things changed. Indeed, when the state and faith start to mix, things always go wrong, at least that's how we see it from our perspective, our viewpoint, as Anabaptists. That is why we also were among the first to believe in separation of church and state. You see, Jesus never promoted any state; he did not preach nationalism, in spite of what people like former American president George Bush and many Americans think.

Jesus is not really interested in Christian nations. He might even say that is an oxymoron, two words that don’t really go together. The scriptures indicated that God only allows or gave man the ability to form nations and governments because we humans are so miserable at keeping peace we need such orders and systems to help us do so.  Jesus taught us only about The Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God; that is the only important kingdom for us as Christians, as Anabaptists. Let us be peacemakers as our Lord is, and we will be the children of God. What better family to belong to than that!

Jesus is the Son of God. He is a peacemaker. He makes peace between God and us and helps make peace between us and other humans, if we let him. He calls us his brothers and sisters. So, especially if we are peacemakers, we are also children of God.