Easter is only days away. In a very real sense, Easter is the most significant day of all days for without the resurrection the entire life of Jesus would have been only a gesture of holy living and a presentation of philosophy of life. But, speaking of Jesus, Paul says, “who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: (Rom.1:4). In other words, it was the resurrection of Christ that established without doubt that he is the Son of God and that he will make good on every promise. Easter does not celebrate the cross but an empty tomb.
The account of the last hours of the life of Jesus is so significant that John gives Chapters 13-20 to those hours. While the other gospels race past the Lord’s Supper and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus in two or three chapters, John slows the camera to a slow motion version of the story which essentially begins in an upper room where the twelve plus Jesus are gathered for Passover. Jesus expressed that he had longed to share that Passover meal with them. I find that hard to grasp because the conclusion of that meal would launch a brutal evening of betrayal, arrest, abandonment, abuse, perjury, beatings, and insults ending with being spiked to a rough hewn timber full of splinters and hoisted into the air to suffer for the next six hours and then to die.
Yet in the middle of the Passover seder, according to the other gospels, Jesus takes some of the unleavened bread that was commanded for the meal, breaks it, and hands it to the twelve saying that it represented his body which he was about to be given for them. He then took a cup of wine for them to sip and told them that the wine would represent the new covenant in his blood. He indicated that his followers were to take these elements on a regular basis until his return because by dong so they would remember him.
If I put myself in the shoes or rather sandals of the apostles, I think both of those statements would have been very confusing. I’m not sure that they yet grasped that this man who had walked on water and commanded storms would be killed in a few hours. Why eat broken bread to represent this physical body and what is this talk about a new covenant when so may of the prophets had already died defending the covenant God had given to Moses for Israel? After all, wasn’t that what Passover pointed to in the first place – the Exodus, the Red Sea, Sinai, and the Law?
I am convinced that most of us as followers of Jesus still do not fully understand the depths of communion which the Lord established at a simple Passover meal 2000 years ago. I’m certain I don’t and yet it was at the heart of the Christian church and their life together for centuries. The early church came together for fellowship and communion rather than preaching and elaborate praise services. They came together on the first day of the week to share a common meal (the agape meal) in which those who had plenty brought plenty to share with those who had little. That was a practical expression of “Love one another as I have loved you.” Then they would take bread and wine to remember the Lord’s sacrifice until his return.
For them, the cup of the New Covenant must have been a breath of fresh air – especially for the Jewish believers who were suddenly out from under the weight of the Law of Moses with its sacrifices and hundreds of laws defining every move of their lives. Covenants were often established by the shedding of innocent blood (animals) in those days and that was a familiar reference point for those believers. The bread that was broken to represent the body of Christ is more of a puzzle. Of course, it represents the physical suffering he went through for each of us but is there more?
Peter may give us some insight into the “more” of his broken body when he says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25, emphasis added). The Greek word that is translated “wounds” in this text speaks of the welts, the swelling, and the injuries that would come from a slave being beaten or whipped. That certainly describes the scourging that Jesus endured at the hands of the Romans.
Peter’s words were surely lifted from Isaiah’s writings when the prophet spoke of Messiah saying, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa.53:4).
Isaiah discussed two things that Messiah carried for us at his death – sin and sickness. Many modern translations make “diseases” into “sorrows” but the word consistently means disease or sickness or infirmity throughout the Bible. When one and a half million Israelites came out of Egypt the Bible tells us that no one of them was sick or lame because God’s grace had provided health and healing for the journey. One of the major marks of Christ’s ministry was healing. Through his Spirit he gives gifts of healing to the church and a special command to call for the elders of the church, if anyone is sick, for their prayer of faith and that prayer is promised to bring healing (James 5).
In modern times we have tended to confine the blessings of Christ’s death to the forgiveness of sin and spiritual healing. But God is interested not just in our spiritual life but also in our physical well-being. The wounds or the bruises of Jesus not only purchased our forgiveness but our healing. Because of contemporary theology, we tend to have faith for the forgiveness but not for the healing. David tied those two blessings together when he said, “Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all my benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psm. 103:2). In Matthew 9, we are told of a paralytic that Jesus healed. He began by telling him that his sins were forgiven. When the teachers of the law questioned his right to forgive sins, Jesus said, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk.’ He then healed the man. The link between forgiveness and healing is seen all through scripture so it should not surprise is that they are linked in the New Covenant as well.
As we take communion, we should reflect not only on the love of Christ demonstrated by the cross and the covenantal forgiveness we have in Jesus, but also the healing that has been purchased for us by his suffering as well. Each time you take the bread, you may want to receive healing in the name of Jesus as part of your inheritance for his world as well as celebrating your forgiveness. Blessings in this life as well as the life to come.
