Dear Grace Vancouver Family,
At the centre of any home with any sense of health, joy, togetherness, belonging and family... is a Table.
Last week I shared a reflection from Dietrich Bonhoeffer from his class work Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community. In Bonhoeffer's excerpt, he reflects wonderfully on the blessing of the physical presence of a brother or sister in the Lord as holding a kind of yearning for the presence of the Triune God Himself.
Let me quote from the first couple of lines from last week's Bonhoeffer excerpt:
"So between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God's Word and sacrament."
Let me reflect on these lines, alongside a reflection on some Scripture verses from the Gospel of Luke 22:14-29a:
"And when the hour came, he (Jesus) reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, 'I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.' And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, 'Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.' And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it..."
What are some observations from these verses as well as Bonhoeffer's words?
1. Yearning is Described. Jesus "eagerly desired" to eat the meal of the Passover with his disciples. Bonhoeffer describes the great yearning isolated believers have for one another as a sign of the presence of Christ Himself.
2. Gathering Around Word and Sacrament is an Anticipation of "Last Things." Jesus said that eating of this meal, we now know as the Lord's Table, was an anticipation of the Day when He would return to make all things new, establish the fullness of His Kingdom and participate once again with His people in "eating and drinking of the fruit of the vine." Bonhoeffer called this the "gracious anticipation of last things."
3. There is Undoubtedly a "Physical Togetherness" We Witness in the Promises of this Coming Kingdom. This is why Bonhoeffer was so adamant to speak of the presence of a brother or sister in the Lord "showing up" to the exile or prisoner as a sign of the presence of Christ Himself. There is the reference in Luke 22 where Jesus speaks of His own yearning to eat of the Passover Meal "with you." In other words, as much as His desire was great, there was no fulfilling of it until He was with His people and once again would be.
Conclusion: do we realize that when we come together as the Body of Christ on the Lord's Day and "assemble" as the Israelites of the Old Covenant,... when we do those things Jesus said we should do, "until He comes,"... we are participating in the powers of the Coming Age in a way we are unable to do the rest of the week? If I can get a little technical here quoting from New Testament commentator Joel Green, when we come together, we participate in the "eschatological advent of God's dominion."
Yes we are Jesus' Church when we "scatter" into the world and yes we are Jesus' Church throughout the week; as we like to say at Grace Van, "Monday Matters!" Yet there is something unique and distinctive about the actual physical gathering, the "coming together" of God's people around His Word and Sacrament. My pastor Mike Malone, during my seminary years, used to say, if we really understood what was happening on the Lord's Day when we gather together, and if we truly had the eyes to see, we would be coming to "church" in crash helmets. Makes sense, if we expect Jesus and the powers of the Coming Age to meet us in such a powerful and dramatic way as we gather.
Reflections: so this leads me to a question that has come up in a handful off conversations from different quarters in our congregation; should we participate in the Lord's Table virtually via Zoom, while we are unable to gather together physically? As I said last week what this reflection would be about, my answer has been, we should "wait upon the Lord to partake."
ONE (Yearning), we should let the yearning and anticipation in our hearts grow larger, all the while feeding ourselves off of the fat of the Word of God and its promises. Our prayer lives should grow robust during this time of not being able to "touch and taste" the Lord's goodness in the elements of the bread and wine and not being able to do so together.
TWO (the Church), we should reconsider if we have too much defined our Christian walks primarily by our own individual lives, rather than as set in the context of the larger, physical covenanted community that is called to gather physically together regularly, but given our extraordinary circumstances, has been unable to do so. Pastor Malone used to give an annual preaching series called "Who Loves the Church?" And by "Church," Mike meant the physical people who are really there in the church community and not merely some kind of spiritualized ideal of a universal church somewhere in the world, but not in our lives. What is more, when we come to the Table on the Lord's Day, we should always be looking to our left and right (as well as above to Him) to seeing who comprises God's family, His Church, and who we are together as His. It wouldn't be difficult to write another lengthy series on the many occurrences of the "one anothers" in Scripture.
THREE (the In-Breaking of the Kingdom), if we catch this vision of the gathering of the physical presence of the Body of Christ, covenanted by faithfulness of God and the promises of one member to another, our hearts just might begin to see each Sunday in our coming together (once we are able to do so again) as nothing less than the New Heavens and the New Earth breaking through (and maybe we will start getting to "church' on time too for the opening call to worship that invites God's people to assemble,... as who wants to miss the crashing in of this "eschatological advent"?!!! : ) Oh yeah, and maybe we will start showing up,... with crash helmets too!!!
I want to suggest that the great yearning to partake in the Table as soon as possible comes from a good place. Let that yearning grow, but let's also not short-circuit the meaning of the Table by trying to find a short-cut back to it, before we the Body of Christ are able to gather together by being able to be present with one another. In the meantime, let's take the proper amount of time to reflect more fully on who we are in relationship to the Grace Van community and what kind of answer we might give to the question, "Who Loves the Church?"
Next Message in this Series: The Sacramental Life; What is It?
No comments:
Post a Comment