Remember Me (Part One)

Remember Me (Part One) In I Corinthians 11:23-30, the apostle Paul reiterates what took place the night our Savior was betrayed and His instruction regarding the proper observance of Passover: For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this breadand drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats anddrinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. Paul relates a few things in this passage that we should consider. We often focus on "examine himself" (verse 28) as we prepare to take the Passover, an annual task that should be complete before taking it. Using a bathing metaphor, Jesus tellsPeter in John 13:10, "He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean." He indicates that Peter had prepared for the occasion by cleaning himself up before arriving to observe Passover. The apostle also quotes Jesus as instructing His disciples to take the bread and wine "in remembrance of Me" (verses 24-25). For the most part, Passover is not about us: It is a solemn assembly to remember our Savior, Jesus Christ, and what He has done for us in laying down His life. It also reminds us about His continuing work as our Mediator and High Priest. The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition, translates the final words of verse 24 as, "Do this to call Me [affectionately] to remembrance." It repeats the phraseology in verse 25: "Do this as often as you drink [it], to call Me [affectionately]to remembrance." When we call something or someone to remembrance, it means we "keep in memory, bring back into one's thoughts, or call to mind" that thing or person. Most assuredly, we must do so regarding the sacrifice Jesus made for us. But remembering is not always easy! The older we get, the more we forget. How often have we stood in front of the refrigerator with the door open and cannot remember what we came for? Something similar happens while working in the garage: Iuse a particular tool and lay it down to do something else. Five minutes later, the tool is nowhere to be found! Most of us can relate. If our Israelite ancestors had one problem, it was forgetfulness. How many times do we read in Israel's history that "they forgot the LORD their God"? When we come together for Passover, we are to remember Christ beaten body as we eat of the bread and remember His life that dripped out, drop by drop, when we drink of the wine. Why? It was our sin that caused Him to be tortured and executed. Passover is the most meaningful ceremony we will participate in the entire year, and we are not to forget why we are there. God first instituted the ordinance of Passover in Exodus 12, giving specific instructions to Moses on how the Israelites were to observe it. When it came to pass, it was like no other night in the history of the world, for not one house in Egypt did not have someone dead in it. It even included the firstborn of the livestock! What God did in slaying the firstborn terrified the Egyptians. They probably thought the world was coming to an end! In the New Testament, Jesus Christ again institutes the observance of Passover, participating in it and instructing His disciples on how to keep it properly under the newly introduced New Covenant. We are to remember what took place and proclaimHis death until He comes. It was certainly not just another occasion to have some food and fun fellowship. Paul had this sort of problem in Corinth, as they sought any reason to get together to eat, drink, and have a good time. Partaking of "this bread" and"this wine" was no ordinary meal. Here is I Corinthians 11:27-29 in The Living Bible: So if anyone eats this bread and drinks from this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, he is guilty of sin against the body and the blood of the Lord. That is why a man should examine himself carefully before eating the bread and drinkingfrom the cup. For if he eats the bread and drinks from the cup unworthily, not thinking about the body of Christ and what it means, he is eating and drinking God's judgment upon himself; for he is trifling with the death of Christ. As we saw earlier, Paul instructs us in verse 28 to examine ourselves carefully before partaking of the bread and the wine. He tells us to do this so that we do not participate in an "unworthy manner." He was trying to get the Corinthians tosee that Passover was not about them but about Jesus Christ and what He did. They needed to consider how they were treating Him, and by extension, how they were treating their brethren. At some point in our conversion, most of us have been guilty of this wrong perspective, making the Passover solely about our spiritual condition. We think that we can somehow muster up enough sorrow and repentance to be worthy of partaking in this spiritual meal, but that is not the point! No amount of soul searching will ever make anyone worthy of the body and blood of Christ. Together, the Father and the Son make us worthy: Christ's shed blood redeems us, and covered by the Son's righteousness, the Father forgives us by His grace and accepts us into His Family. That is whyChrist had to die! His work is the focus of this festival. This meal we partake of—a symbol of fellowship or a relationship—is offered to us as a free gift, but it is the costliest gift we could ever be given. As Paul writes, it is not something to be trifled with! In Part Two, we will further consider what it means to take the Passover unworthily and learn to discern how wonderful God's gift really is. - Ronny H. Graham Remember Me (Part Two) As we saw in Part One, the apostle Paul teaches Christians in I Corinthians 11:27-29 to appraise themselves carefully before partaking of the bread and the wine in the Passover service: So if anyone eats this bread and drinks from this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, he is guilty of sin against the body and the blood of the Lord. That is why a man should examine himself carefully before eating the bread and drinking from the cup. For if he eats the bread and drinksfrom the cup unworthily, not thinking about the body of Christ and what it means, he is eating and drinking God's judgment upon himself; for he is trifling with the death of Christ. (The Living Bible) If we fail to do this, we run the risk of participating in the service in an "unworthy manner." This warning is not intended to scare us away from partaking of the Passover, but the exact opposite! Passover is not focused on us but on Jesus Christ and what He did. When we examine ourselves properly, we adjust our relationship with Christ for the better, and the changes carry over in how we treat our brethren. In this confounding, fearful time, such changeis sorely needed! The seventeenth-century English Puritan Stephen Charnock wrote The Existence and Attributes of God, and in it he comments on this subject. The following appears in a section entitled "A Discourse of the Unworthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper," where he writes about I Corinthians 11:29: An unbeliever doth not properly eat his condemnation; for condemnation is not naturally or sacramentally in the bread and wine, but he eats that which will be the cause of his condemnation, because not considering the glorious use these elementsare destined to, he doth not consider how great and glorious a thing the body of the Lord is, which they represent; and so violates, in those signs, the honour due to His majesty. (p. 473) Unworthy receivers of the Passover meal contract tremendous guilt and incur great danger, pronouncing a sentence on themselves. Paul mentions sickness and death in verse 30. If we partake of the Passover in an unworthy manner, it may be at leastequal to the sin of the Jews in killing Christ, transforming what was ordained to bring life into death. We can think of it as equivalent to placing the body of Christ into a corrupt vessel, that is, mixing the holy with the unholy. Judas did this very thing! He did not seem to care who Christ was but wanted only to use Him for his own purposes.He waited for his chance to stab his Master in the back because He was not fulfilling His role, as Judas saw it. His end was death. Charnock writes about "an unbeliever," and in reading his quotation, we may have thought, "Well, that's not us! We believe!" We need to consider that the larger subject is worthiness and accountability. If an unbeliever partakes of the Passover,he will indeed be held accountable due to his unworthiness, but how much more will God hold a believer accountable? We can apply what Jesus says in Luke 12:48 here: "For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required." God has certainly given us far more than we deserve, and so God requires more of us. It is an incredible, wonderful honor to be invited to partake of the body and blood of our Savior, the great God of creation! Very few people in all human history have been invited to partake of this meal. The bread and wine of this sacred serviceare set aside only for those whom He wants to be one with (see John 17:6-11, 20-23). The blood of Jesus Christ indeed is the sacrifice that makes it possible for our sins�and eventually the sins of the world�to be forgiven, but that does not mean anyone can partake. Only His called and baptized disciples have thatprivilege (see Matthew 26:19-20; Luke 22:14). This invitation to participate should humble us, reminding us that nothing we can do will make us worthy of this gift. He gave Himself to be beaten and hanged on a cross until every drop of His life had drained out so that we could be redeemed,forgiven, and live�and it pleased the Father to have it so (Colossians 1:19-23). We cannot comprehend that kind of love! What a Father we have! Paul writes in I Corinthians 11:29 about "discerning the Lord's body." Discernment means "to have or show good judgment or insight; to perceive clearly with the mind or senses." God wants us to perceive clearly what Jesus has done in offering Himself for us sowe can worthily participate in the Passover ritual�so we do not bring judgment on ourselves. In Exodus 12:5, God gives simple instructions about selecting the animal to be sacrificed on Passover: "Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats." In John 1:29, John the Baptist exclaims: "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" While the original Passover lamb did not cover the Israelites' sins, it helped free them from Egyptian slavery. Its blood, smeared on their doorframes and lintels, providedprotection from the Death Angel, but unlike what happens in the New Testament ritual, they were not instructed to drink of it or its symbol, wine. Consider, however, that God's elect are invited to drink the symbol of His blood, a sign of a far more spiritualand intimate relationship with our God and Savior. In this way, we acknowledge our oneness with the true Lamb of God (see John 6:53-56). In Genesis 22, God tells Abraham to take Isaac to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him. Of course, God stopped him as Abraham drew back the knife. God then provided a ram as a substitute offering. Metaphorically, Abraham is a type of the Father, and Isaac is a type of Christ. It is interesting to considerthat, in saying, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" John knew by revelation that he was pointing out God's sacrificial Lamb. This time, it would be God the Father making the sacrifice, and the knife, as it were, would not be stopped! His Son would die so that we couldbe freed from bondage and be one with Him for all eternity. This truth really brings out the meaning of John 3:16, spoken by that perfect Sacrifice: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." - Ronny H. Graham VISIT: PROPHECY WATCHER WEEKLY NEWS: HTTP://PROPHECY-WATCHER-WEEKLY-NEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM