As we continue our look at our Communion
liturgy, we come to what is called “The mystery of faith”. It’s a very
simple statement, and yet a very important and powerful statement. We say it each time we share communion.
It is simply this: “Christ has died;
Christ is risen; Christ will come again.”
Did you ever wonder why that’s called “the mystery of
faith”? After all, it’s something that as Christians we sometimes take
for granted, right? It’s what we celebrate during Holy Week every
year. We have a Good Friday service,
remembering the death of Christ. We have an Easter Sunday service,
celebrating the risen Christ. And we
acknowledge that Christ has promised to come again, even if we perhaps don’t
think about that as much as we should.
But us taking it for granted does not make it any less of a
mystery. Because we cannot really explain it. Christ dying we can explain--he was nailed to
a cross. But how did Christ rise?
We don’t know. I mean, it was
through the power of God, obviously. But
that does not explain how it happened. And the same thing with Christ
coming again. We don’t know how that’s
going to happen, either, other than, again, through the power of God. We
accept them as true, but they really are mysteries to us. We don’t actually understand them.
Because we don’t understand these things, we need to accept
them on faith. Or not, of course--we can refuse to accept these things if
that’s what we choose to do. But the choice we make on this--whether we
accept it or don’t accept it--is really what determines our faith in Jesus
Christ.
That’s the point the Apostle Paul was making in our reading
from First Corinthians today. Listen to what he says, “What I received I
passed on to you as of first importance:
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was
buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
That Christ rose from the dead is a matter of first
importance. Nothing about our faith matters if we don’t believe that
Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Listen to what he says later: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching
is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are found to be false
witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from
the dead….And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are
still in your sins...If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of
all people most to be pitied.”
People call Jesus a lot of different things. He’s
sometimes called “Teacher”, sometimes “Rabbi”, sometimes a prophet. And
Jesus was all of those things. But if
that’s all Jesus had been, he would not be the Savior. He’d just be a
man. A good man. A wise man.
A man worthy of respect, even admiration. But still, just a man, a human being.
And we don’t worship a human being.
We don’t look to a human being for our salvation. A human being, no matter how good or how
wise, cannot give us eternal life. Only the divine son of God can do that.
That’s why this is the matter of first importance.
That Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the proof that he was not just a
man. He was not a mere human being.
He was, in fact, the Son of God.
He was fully divine, as well as being fully human. He is not just
a good, wise, respectable human being.
He is, in fact, the Savior.
Paul tells us we cannot overemphasize that point. He
says that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is useless. Not just
misguided. Not even just a harmless
diversion. It is useless. It has
no value whatsoever. It is completely
pointless. There’s no purpose to it
whatsoever. Paul would say that if Christ was not raised from the dead,
we might as well all just go to the river on Sunday. There’s no reason
for this church to be here if Christ was not raised from the dead.
In fact, Paul says more than that. He says that if
Christ has not been raised from the dead, we are the most pitiful people in all
the world. Because we’ve put our faith in a lie. And we’ve spent our lives spreading a
lie. We’ve based our entire lives, we’ve
put our entire hope, in a lie. If Christ has not been raised from the
dead, you and I have basically wasted our entire lives.
“Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.”
Those are the words we say each month before we share Holy Communion.
Do we think about them? Do we mean
them? Do you really believe them? Do I really believe them?
Those are important questions. They involve the
matter of first importance. But they lead to a bigger question. If we say we believe those words, do our
lives show that we believe them?
You know, the more I’ve studied our Communion liturgy, the
more I realize how well-crafted it is. These are not just words we say
because they sound good. This is not
something we just do by rote because it’s part of our tradition. The
Communion liturgy is well-organized.
Each piece is put in exactly where it is for a reason. These words:
“Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again”, could have
come anywhere in the Communion liturgy and have been true. But they come
here because they relate directly to what we talked about last week: offering ourselves as a holy and living
sacrifice. Dedicating one hundred
percent of our lives to God.
We talked last week about how hard it is for us, as human
beings, to really dedicate one hundred percent of our lives to God. We
talked about the human concerns that get in our way, that distract us, that
drag us down. But it seems like, if we
truly believe these words, it should not be that hard. If we truly
believe that Christ has died, that Christ is risen, that Christ will come
again; if we truly believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead; if we truly
believe that this is the ultimate proof that Jesus was not just a human being,
that he was, in fact, the divine Son of God; and if we truly believe that Jesus
will come again. If we truly believe all that, it seems like it should be
easy for us to dedicate one hundred percent of our lives to God. If we truly believe that faith in Jesus
Christ is the way to salvation and eternal life, it seems like we should be
eager to dedicate one hundred percent of our lives to God.
And yet, it does not seem to work that way, does it?
And please don’t hear this as me standing in judgment of anyone. As
I said last week, I know that I am very far from dedicating one hundred percent
of my life to God. Some of you are probably closer than I am. But why are we not all the way there? Why is it so easy for us to let those human
concerns get in our way?
Well, the answer is because
we’re human beings. That’s not all bad, of course. God created us to be human beings. And
sometimes, as human beings, we do wonderful, incredible, loving, caring things
that make God proud of us. But at other times, we do some things that are
not so wonderful at all. And, as human
beings, we worry, we get scared, we have doubts. We struggle with our
faith. We want to turn our lives over to
God, and yet we want to keep control of our lives for ourselves. We’re like the man in Mark, Chapter Nine, who
said to Jesus, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”
So what do we do? After all, we cannot stop being
human beings. We can try to be better human beings, and we should, but no
matter how hard we try, at the end of the day we’re still going to be human
beings. We’re still going to have our faults and our fears. We’re still going to be reluctant to turn
everything over to God.
And that’s why this is all in the Communion liturgy.
Because what have we said about Holy Communion? It’s one of God’s means of grace. God
knows we cannot stop being human beings.
And God does not want us to.
Again, God created us to be human beings. And because God created
us, God understands us better than we understand ourselves. God understands why we do the wonderful
things we do, and God understands why we do the not-so-wonderful things we do.
God understands why we worry, why we get scared, why we have doubts. God understands why we struggle with our
faith and find it hard to give God control of our lives. God understands how we can believe and at the
same time need help with our unbelief.
God understands it all. And so God gave us Holy
Communion, what we’ve called the incredible gift of Holy Communion. God
did that so we would know that our sins can be and are forgiven. God did that so we would know we can have
salvation. God did that so we would know that, even though we are human
beings, we can still have eternal life with God in heaven.
“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Lord, we
believe. Thank you for giving us Holy
Communion to help our unbelief.
No comments:
Post a Comment