DOUG EICHER
NOTEBOOK
Acts of War3/21/2021 There’s an interesting bit in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, in the eleventh chapter, where he addresses an abuse within the church. He addresses what he calls the “Lord’s Supper”, which is better known today as “communion”, and how the Corinthian church was treating it as a means of exploiting their wealth and social status. After rebuking them for their behavior, he then recaps the institution of the practice itself and reminds the church of what it is meant to symbolize.
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. After repeating the words of Jesus on that last night before his death, Paul then adds in a little phrase of his own at the end; a seeming summary of what he’s trying to convey to the Corinthians. He tells them that as often as they take the bread and the cup, they are “proclaiming” the Messiah’s death until he comes again. What exactly does Paul mean by that? In the church today, we understand and practice communion as a reminder of the atonement, but we don’t often think of it as a proclamation. What does Paul mean by this and to whom are we proclaiming? In the Christian understanding of the world and where it’s going, there’s a distinct recognition that the world as we see it today is not as it was originally meant to be. In the story of the Scriptures, the world was made as a cosmic temple; a place where God’s space and humans’ space overlapped. The creation narrative of Genesis 1 appears to parallel with the narrative of the construction of Solomon’s temple in I Kings 6. In both narratives, we see construction in 7 distinct stages (7 days in Genesis; 7 years in I Kings), the last of which is a stage of rest. Both the Temple and this new world, Eden, are created as spaces in which God moves and works and, ultimately, spaces of which he gives humans charge. The temple appears to be a micro cosmos, a reminder and representation of what the world itself was meant to be. One interesting thing we note in the account in I Kings is that, unlike the pagan temples of that day, Solomon’s temple is not crowned with an image of the god it is intended to house. In Genesis, however, we do see God crowning his temple with an image; an image he calls “Adam”. But then, it all goes horribly wrong. These new creatures, these image-bearers of God, choose their own way and don’t live up to the charge they were given. This new world falls into the chaos of death and despair, and the humans are exiled from God’s temple. This is the part of the story where we’re first introduced to other, much darker entities in God’s good world. In the first few pages of the Bible, we are introduced to some unknown creature, represented as a snake, about whom we aren’t told all that much. The only thing we do know is that he is a being that is in rebellion against God and seeks others to join him. The snake succeeds in leading the humans into rebellion, and they quite literally bring death down on their own heads. From then on, humans begin to take advantage of each other in terrible ways, defacing the image of God they are called to bear. The world, which was intended to be a beautiful space in which God and man could dwell together, instead becomes a dark and desolate wasteland of human selfishness and greed. However, though the humans are the most visible villains in the story, Scripture makes it clear that there are other forces at work, as well. Throughout the Bible, they are hinted at in various ways: the sons of God, the princes of the nations, the hosts of heaven, beasts from the sea, rulers of darkness and, in classic Pauline terminology, principalities and powers. We aren’t given much insight into exactly who or what they are, but we are given just enough of a glimpse to know that they are invisible forces of evil in this world to which we, as humans, when we chose to rebel against our duty as image-bearers, gave ourselves. Scripture seems to indicate that, when we see the most heinous acts of violence and the most senseless tragedies perpetrated by humans upon other humans, we are seeing their fingerprints on our world. That appears to be why, when Jesus shows up on the scene and begins to proclaim who he is, one of his first encounters is with the one Scripture refers to as “the accuser” or, in Hebrew, “the satan”. Though he doesn’t appear to know exactly what Jesus was here to do, the satan knows exactly who he is. The satan tempts Jesus and challenges his authority. In an apparent replaying of the Genesis narrative, humanity once again encounters the serpent, but this time, humanity remains faithful to its charge and truly bears God’s image. As Jesus moves through the Judean countryside, proclaiming the coming kingdom of God and healing the sick, demonic activity seems to follow him wherever he goes. It appears that the powers of this world were beginning to take notice, and they were not happy. It finally culminates toward the end of the gospel accounts, where we’re told that the satan entered into Judas and caused his betrayal. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul tells us that Jesus, in his death on the cross, disarmed the powers of this world, making a public spectacle of them through his death. He includes, in his list of things that can’t separate us from the love of God in Romans 8, what he simply calls “powers”. He tells us in Ephesians 6 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against “principalities”, “powers”, and “rulers of the darkness of this world”. It appears that, in Paul’s mind, something incredible happened when Jesus died on Good Friday. Somehow, on the cross, he not only paid the penalty for our sin, but he also drew the powers of this world to one place and then destroyed their power through his death. In Paul’s mind, by sunset on Friday evening, something had happened because of which the world would never be the same. So, coming back to our original spot in I Corinthians, what can this tell us about what Paul is trying to say? Well, I think what Paul is getting at here is that we have a much bigger audience than we know. There are forces behind the darkness in this world that, though they are defeated, still have some semblance of authority. Paul appears to be telling us that, when we take the bread and the cup, we are proclaiming, both to ourselves and to these powers, that death and darkness will not have the final word. We are reminding the darkness that it is no longer in control and that Jesus is really the ruler of the world. However, I don’t think Paul meant to limit this to just communion. As believers, whenever we act in Jesus’ name, whether that’s leading in worship on stage, studying Scripture together, or simply fixing our elderly neighbor’s leaky faucet, we are going into battle. We are encroaching on the authority of the darkness that once held this world in its grip, and we are taking back ground. All that is done in Jesus’ name is an act of worship, and every act of worship is also an act of war. It is both a celebration and a proclamation of the fact that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. And so, we as believers are called to love, serve, and give ourselves as living sacrifices. We are called to live as people who believe the unbelievable: that Jesus is truly the ruler of this world, though we may not seem to see it now. By our faith, our love, and our obedience, we remember and proclaim the victory of God on the cross in light of the day when that victory will be made visible and our faith will become our sight.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |