The Most Important Meal in History

Meals are important. Putting aside the fact that our bodies need for to function, we place a lot of importance in eating together. From Christmas Dinner to that first date, or the traditional Sunday Roast with the family to the obligatory trip to McDonalds after a night out, meals mean something. When we gather together and food is involved we make great memories, and usually post those memories all over Instagram. But no meal in history is more momentous and significant to our lives than one which was eaten about 2000 years ago by Jesus Christ and his friends on the eve of his death.

The Passover is a Jewish festival which remembers the liberation of the people of Israel from the slavery of Egypt. It is one of the longest standing feast days in history, having been celebrated for over 3000 years. The Passover meal, or Seder, tells the story this liberation interactively through the food that is eaten, songs that are sung and words that are said through the course of the meal. This is all done in a certain order. There are some very important elements to this, such as unleavened bread, and roasted lamb and bitter herbs which signify different elements of the story, but there are also four cups of wine which are drunk through the meal which signify four promises that God made during the Passover. These are found in Exodus 6:

"'I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgement. I will take you to be my people...'" Exodus 6:6-7 (ESV)

The night before Jesus died, he was leading this meal with his disciples. And he used it to establish a new covenant (Bible word for an agreement or contract between God and us) that would come about through his death and resurrection. Jesus took the story of the Passover, and used it to teach his disciples, and us, the significance of what was about to happen. All four of the Gospels record this meal, but I want to pick up in Matthew's account:

"Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Matthew 26:26-27

So here Jesus takes the bread and wine and gives them a new meaning, he claims that he is the fulfilment of what they signify and tells us to remember him whenever eat and drink them. The bread which Jesus broke was unleavened, which means it was made without yeast, in the Bible yeast represents sin and evil, so when Jesus identifies his body with this bread he is saying that his sinless body is broken for us. The unleavened bread originally symbolised Israel leaving slavery in Egypt, where they had to make bread quickly so did not add the yeast. So with this Jesus is saying that as his sinless body is broken, it will take us out of slavery and bondage from sin and evil.

The cup of wine that Jesus takes would have been the third cup in the meal, we know this through layering what the different gospels say and piecing together the accounts with the order of the Passover. This cup is known as the "Cup of Redemption" and represents the promise "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm". Traditionally, people celebrating the Passover drank from their own cup each time, with the host filling it up for each promise. However here, Jesus only fills his own and gives it to them. He is saying that his blood and his blood alone will be our cup of redemption. That this cup will deliver us from sin. It signifies his blood, which is given when his arms are outstretched on the cross and he died for us.

As I said at the beginning, meals mean something. When we eat and drink together we create memories and mark significant moments in the stories of our own lives and those around us. This meal, which we are all invited to join in with, points to the incredible sacrifice that God made, through Jesus, for us. It points to the fact that he has brought us out, not from the burden of the Egyptians but from the burden of sin. That he has delivered us from its slavery by dying in our place. And that his blood has redeemed us as his arms were stretched out on the cross. It also comes with the invitation for us to be his people. To love according to his way of life, living a life which is all about love, following Jesus' example.

In communion we join in with 2000 years of people looking back at what Jesus did for us, saving us from sin. We look at what he is doing now, redeeming us day by day to be more like himself. And we look at what will happen when he comes again, and we are united with him once again as his people. Let's never forget the significance of this meal, the invitation we have to be part of this momentous moment in history and make it a reality in our lives.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned

In every culture or society, we have a concept of right and wrong. It is something that is fundamental to our understanding of the world. We know that helping an old lady to cross the road is morally right, and stealing an old lady's handbag is morally wrong. Whatever your background, religion or ethnicity, we know that there is some kind of standard that we should be living by. C. S. Lewis put it like this in his book Mere Christianity;

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet."

Often, as humans, we try to put this standard into something we can easily measure. We try to quantify it and write rules and laws to show us what it looks like to live according to the standard. In Christianity we use the word "sin" to describe what happens when we don't meet the standard. The Bible is full of laws which tell us what sin is, and how to avoid it. In fact there are over 613 commandments, or laws in the first 5 books of the Bible alone. It could be safe to say that that is a pretty comprehensive guideline on how to live a sin free life.

Recently I spent some time in the interactive prayer room at my church. Usually I am in there every week, but for whatever reason I've not been able to be in there for just over a month. As I walked in to the room, the first thing I saw, in big letters, was the word "CONFESS". Immediately I started listing in my head all the rules that I had broken over the past month. As I said in my last blog, the last few months have been hard and I've made plenty of mistakes and done some stupid things, so had plenty to list. However as I was making my list I heard the voice of God say very clearly, "Sin isn't about your behaviour, it's about the direction of your heart."

Sin isn't about your behaviour, it's about the direction of your heart.

You see, when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in the whole of the law, he summed up the entirety of the law in 2 statements:

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22: 37-40 ESV)

Love God.

Love others as you love yourself.

All of morality summed up in one word, "Love".

I think what Jesus is saying here, and what his whole ministry was about, is that the rules aren't there to be a legal checklist of things you can and can't do, that when you die God is going to mark your life against and that will determine where you end up. Jesus is saying that the law is just there to help us to know what it might look like to live a life of love. A life where the direction of our heart is towards bringing love to God and to those around us, with every decision we make.

All of the rules and laws in the Bible were given in a specific context, to a specific group of people at a specific time. They show us what it looked like to live a radical and set apart life of love for God and others in that culture. Some of these are still relevant today, like not murdering, but some mean something totally different and are a long way from living a life of radical love. God is taking us on a journey which is moving more and more towards his love and his purpose for humanity.

When we sin, we turn our backs on love and focus on ourselves and what we want. We turn away from honouring God and championing others with our decisions, and just think about what we can gain or how we feel. As the church, we spend far too much time penalising or judging people and ourselves for breaking rules, when we should be showing love.

What if we realised that sin isn't about our behaviour?

What if we realised that blindly following the rules is only making us feel guilty, shameful and pushing people away?

And what if we decided that we would align the direction of our hearts with love? Loving God, and loving others as we love ourselves.

Let's stop trying to measure our morality against a rule book, and instead follow the example of Jesus and live lives of relentless love.

Come to me

The past few months have been tough. I've felt apathetic, angry and far away from the faith I grew up with. I've been doing more and more for God than ever, helping to lead a connect group, worked for a church, seen amazing answers to prayer and had some great friends around me. Yet it feels like the fire has gone out, I've got more questions and doubts than ever and I feel like my life has been flipped upside down and crashed to the floor like the last time I attempted to flip a pancake. This is probably in part due to other people, whether intentionally or not, upsetting me or not being there. More so it's to do with myself, my insecurities and forgetting God in the midst of my wants and needs. But there's still part that I can't explain. It's like even though I'm still doing the same things on the outside, they've lost meaning on the inside. It's like what I'm searching for is deeper than standing in a big building singing words from a screen, letting the person next to me enjoy the sweet fragrance of Lynx Africa. I've grown tired, lazy and bored of blindly going through the motions. Every time I walk into church I know how I need to act, what I need to say and how to act in order to fit in, regardless of what is going on on the inside.


But I'm tired, I'm worn out and I'm burnt out.


I want something different. I want something deeper. I want something real.


When I look at Jesus, the lifestyle he modelled wasn't boring, it was full of life. Everything he did had a purpose, he lived with a rhythm that perfectly balanced being filled and being emptied of the love of God. And he never blindly went through the motions just because that's what was expected. He didn't worry about what people thought of him, he reminded us that living for God isn't about following rules, judging others or looking perfect on the outside. It's about relentless love, service and sacrifice. It's about being with people, being present and real and not covering up our weakness and pretending we are perfect and have it all together.


I'm not perfect.


I've made mistakes, messed up and hurt people.


I'm broken, fragile and hurting. I'll never live up to the rules and expectations of religion.


But that's OK.


It's OK that I'm not OK, because I was never designed to be OK on my own. We were never made to live life on our own.


In the book of Matthew, Jesus said:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30 The Message)

I want some of that rest.


I'm tired of trying to do things on my own, I'm tired going through the motions. I want to start an adventure with Jesus, and rest in him.