Have you ever had a meal that changed your life? I can think back to different things I have eaten over the years with different levels of nostalgia because of the events that took place around the food. Most meals for me are memorable because of the people that are brought around the table and the conversations that are shared. Food plays a major role in who we are and what is meaningful to us. Erin and I didn’t have cake at our wedding. That seems significant to a lot of people. We aren’t huge fans of cake, but we do love a good pie…and we eat lots of pie at different times of the year. It would be significant if a wedding didn’t have some kind of celebratory food.
We often pair certain types of food with significant events. This is no different for the focus of this week’s sermon. When Jesus called his disciples to a deeper level of following him, he did not give them new doctrines. He gave them a meal. They ate the Passover meal together (Mt. 26:17–30, Mk. 14:12–26, Lk. 22:7–39 and Jn. 13:1–17:26) and he gave it new meaning for them. This meal has been central to Christian community from that moment moving forward. The Church receives her identity through this meal and this identity should shape everything we do together. It is in this meal that Jesus, God in the flesh, took on the role of the servant and washed the disciples’ feet (even Judas). He called them to do likewise. “This is my body… This is my blood…” are words that have echoed for two millennia.
We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months talking about what the Lord’s Supper is supposed to mean for us. We want to reclaim the importance of the Lord’s Supper for our community through being intentional with our practices around the meal. This Sunday, we will move the Lord’s Table to the center of our assembly as the visual center of who we are.
To prepare for this Sunday, take some time to read Exodus 12:1-14. The blood on the doorposts mark the people as set apart as the people of God. This is a reality that they carry with them through the wilderness and into the promise land. They kept this meal as central to their identity as those set apart by God. The problem Israel continued to struggle with is living out their identity of being set apart as the people of God. They continued to choose Egypt (slavery) over God (freedom).
When Jesus made the new covenant in his blood, he set us apart as the people of God. We choose to be marked by his blood, to be set apart from those in the world. This is central to who we are as Christians. The divisions and the chaos of the world are not our ways.
In Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, he reminds them of their identity in Christ as those marked out by his blood. Paul addresses the flippancy of sin in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13. The main thing I want to focus on this Sunday is verse 6-8. How does focusing on our identity in Christ, set apart in the world, transform us from the ways of the world and into the image of Christ for the world? What areas of your life don’t come in line with what Christ has called us to in his death, burial, and resurrection? If you took a deep look each week at the call to be set apart in this world by the blood of Christ, how would your life begin to change? How would our Church Family change with this focus at the center of who we are? “Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” – 1 Corinthians 5:8.