{"id":8618,"date":"2023-01-24T16:44:37","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T23:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=8618"},"modified":"2023-01-24T16:44:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T23:44:38","slug":"one-body-not-like-one-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=8618","title":{"rendered":"
One Body; Not Like One Body<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I Corinthians 10:16-17, 12:12-27<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sermon on the Lord\u2019s Supper for the Season of Epiphany<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this season of Epiphany we\u2019ve been looking at how God works practically, how he works though his Word. Last week it was Baptism and today it\u2019s the Lord\u2019s Supper. In order to deal properly with the Lord\u2019s Supper, communion, Eucharist, it is important to go to the baseline: God became a human being and died and rose again for you and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we look at the New Testament, we find this is a complicated business because only God can do what Jesus does, and yet he is human, too. Consider the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark ends with the account of the storm at sea. The disciples wake Jesus up and he says to the wind: \u201cPeace, be still.\u201d And the storm stops. The disciples say: \u201cWho is this that the wind and the waves obey him?\u201d Only God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the eleventh chapter of John there is the man called Lazarus who died and had been dead four days. He didn\u2019t just appear to be dead. The people then knew all about catatonia, that is, where people seem to die. They knew all about ghosts and spirits and tricks. But Jesus came to his tomb and spoke: \u201cLazarus, come out\u201d (John 11:43). And Lazarus was alive again. Who can do that except God?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luke 8:45 it says Jesus was walking along and a woman who was ill touched the hem of his garment. Then he said: \u201cWho touched me?\u201d You\u2019d think he would know who touched him if he was God. He wasn\u2019t just playing a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or on the cross Jesus cried out: \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d (Mark 15:34). And then he died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you put this together? It was not a charade or a game; he truly died. He was both God and man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christians have scrambled to explain all this. Some say: \u201cWhen he became truly one of us, he was no longer God.\u201d But others say: \u201cHe was God, but he was pretending not to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church looked at this for four hundred years. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. they decreed: \u201cDon\u2019t go there. We hold both. He is truly God, truly human and don\u2019t try to think beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C.S. Lewis said either that Jesus is truly God and died and rose again, or it\u2019s all nonsense. To be sure, we can honor him as an important leader, but finally it\u2019s foolish, even idolatry. It\u2019s either foolish, or it\u2019s the big one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I say: \u201cOnce upon a time,\u201d you know that I\u2019m going to tell you a well-known fairy tale, or I\u2019m going to talk about something in the past and perhaps it was a little different than usual, like the raising of Lazarus in John 11. What happened to Lazarus was sensational. He died and then came to life again. Although we don\u2019t have any further records, he eventually died again. There may have been others who arose from the dead. We recall Lazarus, and it\u2019s interesting, and we think: \u201cWasn\u2019t that an amazing event!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But over against \u201cOnce upon a time,\u201d there is \u201cOnce for all time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we deal with the fact that God became one of us truly and died and rose again, that is: \u201cOnce for all time.\u201d What God has done changes everything. It\u2019s that for which there is no analogy. There is no parallel. It\u2019s not just unique. Everything in a way is unique. It is that which is sui generis.<\/em> It\u2019s God against God and God wins. It\u2019s that kind of thing which is everything, and it is spelled out in the last verse of the Gospel of Matthew where it says: \u201cLo, I am with you always, to the close of the age\u201d (Matt 28:20). Shazam!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does this apply in concrete terms now for us as we think about how the Lord comes in a little bit of water and his Word and we call it Baptism, and in little bit of wine and bread and his Word, and we call it the Lord\u2019s Supper?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, he\u2019s not present in everything that is food. In a way as God the Creator he is the one who creates and sustains everything. Therefore we give thanks for food. In a way he is present everywhere that way.  He\u2019s God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, he is present particularly in his Word of promise in the Word and water of Baptism and in the bread and wine of Communion because that is his command and his promise. Very particularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We rebel at these limits. We think: \u201cWell, no, Lord. You have to do it other ways. Lord you need to be present to me at the top of the mountain.\u201d The Lord says: \u201cThat\u2019s not my command and promise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or we say: \u201cLord, I have to feel it right or think it right, experience it right.\u201d To which the answer is: God became one of us and died and rose again and that\u2019s not according to our way of thinking or understanding or feeling. He does it his way, not our way. It\u2019s here, not elsewhere. When we gather this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years ago the Vatican changed the wording in its translation of the Mass for the whole Roman Catholic Church. The change came from Rome and that made it authoritative, except it provoked a big battle in Germany. In the German Catholic Church the Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops said in effect: \u201cWe will not accept this translation you have given us for the Mass.\u201d The problem had to do with the very words of institution. The wording had been \u201cThis is for all.\u201d The Vatican changed the wording to: \u201cThis is for many.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vatican wanted to follow the Greek. The New Testament Greek says in four places: \u201cThis is for many.\u201d There is no question of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Jesus did not speak Greek. He spoke Aramaic. In both the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany the church leaders are often professors who know this translation problem. They know that the original Aramaic term behind the Greek doesn\u2019t say \u201cfor many\u201d it says \u201cfor all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the German Catholic hierarchy \u2013 the Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops \u2013  said to Rome was that you can\u2019t do that to us because the Protestants will eat us alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we celebrate communion, we say: \u201cWe have to do it right.\u201d But of course if we were really going to do it right, we\u2019d have to do it in Aramaic. Or which translation would we use, because translations vary? Which words? What gestures are right? Do we turn the right way? Or whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of course it\u2019s God\u2019s doing. It\u2019s here. Not on a mountain top, not how we think about it. It\u2019s his doing. In 1 Cor 10:16-17 Paul writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are one loaf. We are one together. That\u2019s because that event was and is for all time.  It\u2019s not just \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d that Jesus died and rose again. It\u2019s \u201cOnce for all time.\u201d That changes everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 Cor 12:27 says: \u201cNow you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.\u201d We are a body, one body. It doesn\u2019t say we\u2019re like a body, as a metaphor or simile. It says we are his body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(In Colossians 1:18 and Ephesians 1:22-23, Christ is the head of the body, implying a hierarchical ecclesiology. In contrast, in 1 Cor 12:12-27 the body is the priesthood of all believers [note verse 16: \u201cAnd if the ear should say, \u2018Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,\u2019 that would not make it any less a part of the body.\u201d] \u201cPauline ecclesiology is basically Christology. . . . In a sentence \u2013 every Christian in his own place, in his particular situation, with his specific capacities and weaknesses, may and must be a \u2018place holder\u2019 for Christ until death.\u201d) See Ernst K\u00e4semann, Perspectives on Paul<\/em>, 102-21, here 117 and 119.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are one body. That\u2019s the big event that happened once for all, and this event continues among us through his Word in Baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper. We are one body, not like a body. It is one body including participating and communing as his adopted sons and daughters who have been made heirs, as it says in Romans 8:17 and Galatians 4:7. It changes everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why when we come together for the preaching of the Word, Baptism, and the Lord\u2019s Supper, it shouldn\u2019t be dull. We tend to think we must be solemn. It doesn\u2019t mean that this place becomes a house of business. It is a house of prayer. At the same time, we remember that we are then part of and continuing that which changes everything. Death is over. We\u2019re celebrating the resurrection. Perhaps we should have fireworks and shout Halleluia! Let there be hilarity (hilaritas<\/em>). Everything has changed in his Word, Baptism, and the Lord\u2019s Supper and forever. Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Corinthians 10:16-17, 12:12-27<\/p>\n

A sermon on the Lord\u2019s Supper for the Season of Epiphany<\/p>\n

In this season of Epiphany we\u2019ve been looking at how God works practically, how he works though his Word. Last week it was Baptism and today it\u2019s the Lord\u2019s Supper. In order to deal properly with the Lord\u2019s Supper, communion, Eucharist, it is important to go to the baseline: God became a human being and died and rose again for you and me.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8618"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8624,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8618\/revisions\/8624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}