the greatest

What makes a person great?

It was Australia’s turn to host a round of the World Motorcycle Grand Prix Championship (aka MotoGP) this weekend. It’s always a weekend to spend as  much time in front of the TV for me (OK – maybe I really don’t have a life!) appreciating the genius and skill of these guys who throw an engine on wheels down tracks & around corners at an average of about 175kms/hour! Awesome! All weekend the TV commentators were referring to an individual known as Valentino Rossi as ‘the great man’. At the same time, I had Jesus’ words from  Mark 10:42-45 buzzing around my head as I meditated & prepared my sermon for yesterday. (What? A guy can multi-task, can’t he?)

I kept coming back to the question – what makes a person great?

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on the question. At this stage, I’m thinking that greatness is determined by the achievements & successes we attain through our efforts, determination & strength. So, Rossi is considered great because of all the wins he’s had racing motorbikes. In the same way, people are considered to be great who do big things, achieve impressive results, or come out on top one way or another.

Jesus challenges us to totally re-think greatness though. He defines a person as ‘great’ who puts aside their own desire for success, achievement or glory to take care of the people around them by helping and serving them. True greatness doesn’t come through doing things that benefit ourselves but that benefit others.

Jesus points to himself as being the way to understand greatness. He shows himself as the one who comes, ‘not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (v45). This verse itself is vitally significant for a couple of reasons. First, I have major issues for ‘Christian’ groups who emphasise the ‘Lordship’ of Jesus and turn him into a rule maker who shall be served blindly. Jesus here puts himself in the role of the servant, not the one to be served! He comes to take care of us, not expect blind obedience from us. While we might want to serve him in faith & love, then, the basis of the relationship that Jesus establishes with us is on his committment to love & serve us, not the other way around.

The second thing that strikes me is the magnitude of this statement. Here we have the one through whom the universe was made, the ‘exact representation’ of God’s being, who sustains ‘all things by his powerful word’ (Hebrews 1:1-3) making himself our servant & slave! Can you get your head around that? The Lord of all dedicates & commits himself to caring for you & for me like a servant commits him/herself to the care of his/her master/mistress! It makes no sense! Yet when we look at the cross, we see almighty God sacrificing everything to give us the forgiveness, love and everything we need to be reconciled with him and live in relationship with him, now and for ever!

Sometimes I think we can be too quick to jump into the example Jesus leaves for us to follow. I’d encourage you to just sit & dwell on that for a while – in Jesus, the almighty & living God commits himself to serve you & take care of all your needs in this world & the next…

As we follow Jesus then and as we live as his people in this world, we’re called to a new understanding of greatness. The greatest are those who don’t win achievements or success for themselves; the greatest are those who serve others & take care of the needs of the people around them. That’s huge! It means that greatness is within the grasp of all of us through faith in Christ Jesus. As we serve him by serving others, we become great in God’s eyes as we follow the GReat Servant of all. Do you want to be a great parent? Or a great partner? Or a great student, worker, teacher, storeman, cleaner, trolley collector? When we do the things we do, no matter how ordinary, mundane or seemingly insignificant, as an act of service to the people around us, no matter how small, in the eyes of almighty God, we are great through faith in Christ.

That gives us a whole new perspective, not only on what it means to be great, but the little things we do every day of our lives…

Peace.

hiding

Ever had the feeling that God’s hiding ? Maybe something really bad has happened & we’re wondering how God could let that happen, or what we did to deserve it? Maybe we’re feeling the accusing finger from people, or a world that constantly seems to be telling us that we’re no good or we’re failures, or those voices from inside that make us doubt our own worth or abilities? Or maybe we’re just looking for direction, with a hard decision to make, and just want a little guidance? When we’re looking for God & he’s silent, it can seem like he’s a long, long way away, or make us wonder if he even cares…

When God’s hiding, life can be really, really hard.

Job knew what that’s like. He’d had it all & lost everything – and I mean everything. All he had was a pile of crap to sit on, a broken piece of pottery to scratch at the sores that was covering his body, and a nagging wife who just wanted him to ‘curse God & die!’ Job was looking for God, but no matter where or how hard he looked, he just couldn’t find him (see Job 23:8,9).

This becomes the challenge of faith. Like Hebrews 11:1 says, ‘faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of things we don’t see‘ (TNIV). Faith will always have as an integral part of its nature an element of uncertainty and doubt – if that was removed it wouldn’t be faith, it’s be knowledge! Luther at some point even went so far to saw that faith is trusting that God’s Word is true, even when everything we experience says the opposite.

So, if we’re sitting on our respective piles of crap, oppressed by physical pain, nagging doubts to give it all up & the accusations of people around us and the voices within, we’re not alone – Job was there & he hung in believing in God’s goodness, and God vindicated his faith by blessing him even more richly. More importantly, Jesus was there as he hung on the cross, and as he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ he knew what it was like to feel abandoned by a God who seems to be hiding. The good news in this, though, is that when we feel like God is furthest away, because Jesus suffered the same thing, he is with us in our loneliness, and that means that God is with us in our loneliness. Wierd huh – when we feel furthest from God, that’s when God is closest to us in the crucified Christ.

The ultimate upside – God vindicated his Son’s faith by raising him from the dead. Jesus trusted & he received the reward!

Som hang in there! Even though it might seem like God’s hiding from us, that’s when he’s the closest to us. He will keep his promises – to be with us even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23), to work things out for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28), to get us through whatever we are facing (1 Corinthians 10:13) and give us a better tomorrow (Romans 8:18).

Whatever’s going on, hang in there – God is good & will give you what you need…

Peace.

taster

I had a bit of a struggle with last week’s sermon. The idea & theme was easy enough – Hebrews 2:9 (‘… by the grace of God he [Jesus] might taste death for everyone’) led to the idea of a food-taster – a servant who would taste the food of a king or lord to see if it was poisoned or not. Compared to the importance of the king, these people were considered unimportant & expendable; if they died, it didn’t matter. If the king died, however, it would be a national tragedy. So food-tasters were unimportant people who gave their lives so that more important people could go on living…

The strange thing I got out of the verse from Hebrews, then, was that the King of Kings, the Son of God, tasted death for us, his servants. The One who deserves all honour & glory as the King of all Creation gets off his throne and tastes the dish of death by being nailed to a cross and crucified so that we, his servants, can be spared death and can live forever. The exchange is simple but amazingly profound – the King dies so the servant can live.

What I struggled with was that the question kept coming back to me was ‘So what?’ I mean, we know that, right? We understand that God died in Christ Jesus so we can be set free from death – it’s the basic Christian faith that everyone knows. Suddenly I was confronted with a 5-minute sermon that basically re-worked something that everyone knew already. Is it really worth struggling out of bed & getting to church for that? So, I asked myself, what’s the point…?

This concerns me for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, are we so used to the scandal of the Gospel of Jesus’ death for us that we’ve become complacent with the most miraculous thing that has ever happened on this earth – that the King of all Creation should sacrifice his death for me? We live in such a sensationalized culture, where the next thing has to be bigger & better, or smaller & faster, that the last thing just to try to get noticed. Have we done the same with the church? I worry about the church where emotional hype and on-fire sensationalism is presented as Christianity instead of a deep relationship with Jesus based on commitment in the middle of our daily struggles. (There is a song by a band called mewithoutYou that put across this idea pretty well – I’ll post them on my lyrics page so have a look.) The questions remains in my mind: are we so used to the message of the Gospel that we’ve lost its meaning?

Or, as the second concern that buzzed around my head, have we become so complacent about the message of the gospel itself that it has become a cliche, a set formula that we throw into the mix without really exploring the depths of its message & its implications for us? Are we content to add it as a formula to our sermons, Bible studies or discussions as a way to satisfy their theological correctness, but we’ve failed to plunge the depths of the mystery of Christ crucified to explore its meaning for us? OK - the King tastes death so his servant can go free, but what does that mean? How does that shape our identity? Our value? Our own sense of self-worth & self-esteem? What does it mean for us as we wake up this morning and face the things we’ve got to do that our King would step down from his throne to taste death for us so we can be free from its terrors, and threats? Maybe that’s why so many churches have to resort to sensationalist and hype-driven methods, because we’ve forgotten what it means for us that the King of the Universe would die in our place. Maybe that’s the challenge we need to embrace as the church – to explore the meaning behind the mysteries of the gospel instead of reducing them to cliches and set formulae.

In the end the gospel is the message that gives life, and after all the lights are gone, the emotions have subsided & the hype has died down, that’s the one thing that will never change – that the King tastes death so we can live forever!

Peace.

esther

This is a great story about a great woman. If you don’t know it I encourage you to go read it. It’s got it all – political intrigue, deception, romance, revenge, and a happy ending! It all hinges around a choice to be made by a young girl: whether to defend an oppressed people by speaking up but risking her own life by doing so, or to keep quiet and witness an act of genocide.

Critical to the story are the words of Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, who encourages Esther to speak with her husband, King Xerxes of Persia, by saying that maybe it was for this very reason, the salvation of the Jews, that she was made queen and brought to the palace (Esther 4:14).

We might not have to make choices that could put our own lives at risk, and our decisions probably won’t result in the extermination of whole nations of people, but how often do we find ourselves with choices not too different from Esther, just on a smaller scale? Every time we find ourselves with people who doing something wrong we face the same choice. Whenever we witness injustice, oppression or exploitation, we have the same decision to make. If we ever see someone in need, who could use our help, we are confronted with Esther’s dilemma. Do we speak up for what is right, good and true, even if it puts our own safety, reputation or wellbeing at risk? Or do we play it safe, keep quiet, do nothing, and let evil run rampant through the world?

Mordecai’s words still ring true centuries later: maybe God brought us here for just this reason…

Peace.

Jesus & the kids

Mark’s version of Jesus with the little kids in chapter 9:30-37 ends up with Jesus saying, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me’ (TNIV). By that he means our heavenly Father – when we welcome a child into our community in the name of Christ, we welcome the presence of the living & almighty God!

First question(s): if Jesus knocked on the door of your house, how would you welcome him? Same question but from a slightly different perspective: if Jesus was to turn up to your church next Sunday, how would you make him feel welcome?

There are times when I’m leading worship & I’m looking at the faces of the people in our congregation when it becomes painfully obvious that there are a lot of kids who have come through the church who aren’t there anymore. I know the reasons why they aren’t there are many & varied, and there are a number of people who have grown up in the church who are still active members of the body of Christ in different places, but the number of children & grandchildren of people I see in front of me who have turned their backs on Christ & his church (for now anyway) makes me wonder…

Second question(s): why are so many of our kids not in church anymore? What did we do wrong in not making them welcome?

The thing is, I REALLY want to turn things around. I want our church to be a place where young people, children & teenagers, can feel welcome, where they can meet Christ and know all of his benefits. The hard part is working out how to create and foster a church culture where they can be welcomed, but I believe very strongly that it does not happen:

1. by talking about our kids as the ‘future of the church’. Hearing these words from a young person’s point of view can too easily make them feel like their place in the church is just to perpetuate the institution and culture that we’ve worked so hard to build. Suddenly, the church isn’t about them, it’s about us using the kids to keep going what we’ve spent so much time & energy trying to build. No, the kids aren’t the future of the church; THEY ARE THE CHURCH NOW!!!
2. by giving them jobs to do around the place. We believe in and operate from a theology of grace and faith; to say that kids will stay in church if we give them stuff to do operates from a theology of works, ie they will meet Christ through what they can offer him, not through what we, as the body of Christ, can offer them. Another way of putting it is that their experience of ‘church’ becomes primarily how they are supposed to serve God (works) when it needs to be how God serves them (grace) through us! I know that at some point, it’s necessary for us to live our faith out through works, but they flow from faith in love, not the other way around. Going back to my first question(s), still another way of understanding this approach is if Jesus knocked on my door, would we welcome him by giving him a job to do around the place? ‘Hey Jesus, great to see you! I’ve got these dishes that need to be washed & weeds to be pulled from my garden!’ I guess the thing about Jesus is that he’d do them for us, but it’s still not a good way to welcome a guest!

So this leads me to my final question(s): how do we welcome Christ into our church(es) through our children & young people? What can we do to make them feel like they are the church now, that they are valued, like they are welcome and they have a spiritual home with us that will last for all time? What do we need to change to make them feel like they belong?

I’m looking forward to your thoughts.

Peace.

camps, crows & spectators

I had a massive weekend!

On the first Friday night of every month a thing called Shed Men happens around the place. It’s basically a chance for blokes to get together once a month and … well, be blokes. I can’t give out too many details because we’re sworn to secrecy so the girls don’t find out but it generally involves meat, barbecues, beer and sheds. Anyway, one weekend a year Shed Men hold a camp where the Dads around the place take off camping with their primary school aged kids & spend some quality time together. This year’s Shed Men Go Bush was held this last weekend & I got to go along as chaplain & honorary Dad-type-person-with-no-kids. We experienced the weather from all 4 seasons in about 2 days but seeing these guys hanging out with their children was great.

In my humble opinion, speaking as a not-yet-but-hopefully-will-be-one-day-Dad, it’s so important for Dad’s to spend time with their kids. I know it’s hard with all the pressures of life, but if you’re a Dad who just hasn’t found much time with your child lately, please do it soon. Both Dads & kids commented that the best time spent over the weekend was the time they spent sitting & talking to each other about what’s happening in life & what’s important to them.

I did a devotion then on Sunday morning about how our heavenly Father wants a relationship with us like any Dad & his kid. I’ve seen parents’ hearts get broken because their kids don’t want anything to do with them for one reason or another. Imagine how our heavenly Father must feel. Just like we need to spend time with our earthly Dad’s, so our heavenly Father loves it when we spend time with him, too. I know people are busy, but please – find the time. It’d make any Dad’s day…

The Crows got beaten Saturday night & so are out of the finals. When I turned up to church last night for the evening service it was the big topic of conversation. That got me thinking – what’s the difference between a spectator & a follower? Words like ‘commited’, ‘passionate’, ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘motivated’ were all suggested. Then I asked: what does Jesus want us to be – spectators or followers? Sometimes people criticise Christians for being too much like spectators – who just sit on the sidelines & watch what’s going on – rather than followers – people who invest themselves & get committed.

When Jesus called people to be his disciples, he called them to be his followers, not just spectators. In Mark 8:34 he says this means 3 things:

1. denying ourselves – we’re called to say ‘no’ to ourselves; our lives aren’t about us anymore, but in any given situation following Christ means saying ‘no’ to what we want for ourselves & ‘yes’ to what’s best for the people around us
2. taking up our cross- that’s going to mean that we’re going to suffer; when we live for others instead of ourselves, we’re going to miss out on a lot of stuff the world thinks is important & that’s going to hurt
3. following Christ – this passage comes just after Jesus has announced that he’s going to Jerusalem to suffer & die for the salvation of the world; to follow Christ means to walk in his steps & live as he lives so others can know of his saving love

There are a whole variety of ways people have interpreted this text so I’d be happy for you to throw other ideas into the mix. There’s no way I’m going to claim to have the monopoly on its meaning. I’d be interested in hearing other ideas. I guess in the end, though, the call to follow Christ by walking the way of the cross is placed on the life of every Christian. Basically it’s about not being spectators but followers – people who are committed, passionate & motivated to be as Christ-like as we possibly can because of his incredible love for us.

The Crows made a pretty big impact on this city because of their fans. Can you imagine the impact the followers of Christ could make if we were as passionate about our faith?

Peace.

trumps

If you don’t mind, I’m going to get brutally honest for a bit (if you do mind, or think you might, you’d better stop reading now…).

I get frustrated in the church when I think that a lot of people’s ideas of what it means to be Christian is about turning up to church on Sundays, maybe helping out with a committee or two, but that’s about it. There are days when I’m talking with someone or preaching from the pulpit when I come across or see people who are really hurting or confused or struggling with one thing or another. You see, I believe in a Christ who is alive & well & able to help us in our time of need (see Psalm 50:15). So often we forego God’s help and are left to struggling along alone because either we are too afraid of being judged for the issue with which we are struggling or we fail to believe that the risen Christ can actually help us.

I know that too often Christians are the first ones to start pointing the finger & judge people who haven’t got it all together for one reason or another. But it shouldn’t be like that! Instead, as James says, ‘Mercy triumphs over judgment’! (2:11) Maybe another way of saying that is that mercy trumps judgment, just like the joker card trumps every other card in a game of 500. In the death & resurrection of Jesus, he has suffered judgment for us. All that’s left from God, then, is mercy because Jesus has taken the full weight of God’s perfect judgment on the cross. In that act, the innocent is judged & condemned so the guilty can go free. If in Christ I am free from judgment & have received mercy for my flaws, failings & sin then, as one who has received mercy, I need to show that same mercy to others around me. Another way of looking at it is when we’re tempted to judge others & point the accusing or criticising finger at them, we need to remeber that God has already had mercy on them by giving Jesus to die for them, and if God has had mercy on them, what right do we have to judge them?

In the end, it’s about the church being a lot less judgmental and a lot more willing to support and help people in need rather that judging and accusing. That way, people can know God’s mercy in their lives through us. If we could create this sort of a culture in our church, maybe the people around us wouldn’t be so reluctant to ask for help, and then God could give the saving help he wants to through us, his people of faith. Then we can all know God’s mercy that trumps the judgments of this world and our own hearts.

In the end, that’s what faith is – trusting that God’s mercy trumps every other judgment, so he can & will help us in our need though his community of holy people.

Peace.

mirrors

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

I guess most of the time when we look at our reflections in the mirror we’re looking for flaws – things  like hairs that need to be shaved (or plucked), sleep boogers that need to be wiped away, pimples that need to be squeezed … maybe I’ll leave it there. I think you might get the idea.

As I was thinking over &  meditating on James 1:22-25, then, this was the idea with which I was running: that when we look at ourselves in the reflection of God’s word, it shows us our flaws, failings & sin. I guess I could be excused for doing that because as part of classic Lutheran theology, the second & spiritual use of the law is defined as showing us our sin before God so we look to Christ for forgiveness & salvation. But then I started asking myself what the ‘perfect law that gives freedom’ is. It can’t be God’s demands, commands & expectations on us because then we would end up in a works righteousness based on our own efforts. That runs contrary to the gospel. For James, then, this ‘perfect law that gives freedom’ must mean something else…

Then I started thinking, if we believe that salvation comes through faith in God’s promises, when we look at ourselves in the mirror of the gospel of Jesus Christ, what would we see? We might see ourselves as forgiven, purified, holy, good, and so on. Instead of seeing our flaws, we could see ourselves as good people, as the holy children of God – as God our heavenly Father sees us in Christ. That would make sense, then, when James encourages us to not just hear God’s word, but to do it. It’s not just about blindly doing what we’re told. Instead, when we see ourselves as God’s holy people, James wants us to live as God’s holy people in all we say & do. When we hear that we’re forgiven, we live as forgiven & forgiving people. When we hear that God is gracious to us, we live as gracious people. When we hear that God loves us in Christ Jesus, we love others in the same way. This is consistent with the rest of James I reckon because he’s about faith being not just hearing What God says to us in the gospel, but trusting God each & every day of our lives by using our words & actions to take care of others. That’s true faith – not just an intellectual assent to an idea, but a lifestyle of love & care for other people.

So next time you look at yourself in the mirror, don’t get hung up on your flaws. Remember that when God looks at you he sees you as beautiful and flawless in Christ. Then, be a beautiful & flawless person in all you say & do. Don’t just hear God’s words of forgiveness & recreation in Christ – do it!

Peace.

one day in church

I love travelling. I haven’t done a lot of it overseas – there are heaps of places that are on my list to visit before I leave this world – but most of it has been in Australia. My favourite way to spend time off from work is to jump on the motorbike & head for the horizon. It might be for an afternoon or a month, but exploring new places rates as one of my most favourite things to do.

If you had the chance to go anywhere on this planet, where would you go? What if you had a three-year, all expenses paid trip given to you? How would you spend it? Where wold you go? What would you like to do? How would you spend that time?

… and would you be willing to trade it, to give it up, for a day in church?

Whoever wrote Psalm 84sounds like a crazy person! He (I know that it’s grossly politically incorrect, but I’m going to assume it was written by a guy, although I admit that I could quite easily be wrong, OK?) reckons in verse 10a that he would prefer to spend one day in the courts of God’s house than a thousand (that’s almost 3 years) anywhere else! Think about that – ANYWHERE else!!! Granted that in his day he didn’t have motorbikes, Gold Coast theme parks or coach tours around Europe, but he still had the pyramids of Egypt and, depending on the timing this psalm was written, the hanging gardens of Babylon. He could have done a tour of the & Wonders of the Ancient World. That would’ve been pretty cool! But no – he wants to go to church for a day! What’s with that???

I guess that most churches are like mine & aren’t very comfortable. They tend to have hard seats with inadequate cooling in summer or heating in winter. Why would this person want to spend time there, let alone give up a 3-year world tour for one day? Most of the time we struggle to get to church on time, and when it comes to getting teen-aged kids to church I’ve been told on more than one occasion it can be a real battle. So why would this guy WANT to be there?

His answer comes in verse 11; he can find something there he can’t find anywhere else. He finds his God who is like a sun to him, warming his heart & giving him life; who is a shield to him, protecting him from every destructive thing in this world that would harm or hurt him. He finds God’s grace there, unconditional love, forgiveness & acceptance, as well as the honour of being made a child of the living God. This is good stuff, things we often so desperately need in life. In fact, he ends the verse by saying that God doesn’t hold back any good thing, but just opens the floodgates to pour blessing into his life. He finds all of this in God’s presence, in worship, in the house of God.

What a beautiful picture of what church could be. Too often around the place I hear words that sound like we should be ‘getting people into church’. This psalm makes me think that’s not the point. It’s about ‘church’ and the worship we offer being a place where people can find our God who is the sun & shield for them as he gives his grace & honour to those who gather in his presence. In the end, worship needs to be a place where God pours every good thing into the lives of his people and as we live out those blessings in community with each other. God has so much that is good to give hurting, confused & burdened people. Worship is the place he does it. That’s why the writer of the psalm wants to be there.

But what about us? How, when & why did worship become such a chore or burden? How do we re-capture the sense of yearning that the writer of the psalm feels for the house of God? How do we help people re-discover the joy that comes with being in God’s presence? I can’t help but ask this especially for the young people of our community & I’m not talking about the hype-driven, feel-good vibe some churches work hard to manufacture. I’m talking about an honest & real encounter with a gracious God who wants to give us every good thing through & in Christ.

I don’t know. They’re big questions & I’m not even sure they’re the right ones. I still reckon they’re worth asking but…

Peace, yeah?!

bread

I reckon that one of the trickiest things about reading Scripture is working out which parts to take metaphorically and which bits to understand literally.

Take Jesus’ extended discourse on being the ‘Bread of Life’ in John 6for example. I have a commentary on my bookshelf which argues that when Jesus says, ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day’ (v54) he MUST have been speaking metaphorically. To assume that Jesus was speaking literally would put him in the same category of a character from the movie Twilight (which, by the way, I thought was possibly the worstvampire movie ever made – domesticated vampires with shiny skin? Oh please! But i digress…). There’s is something inherently abhorrent about the idea of eating human flesh and drinking human blood, and so, this writer (+ others) argues that we can’t take Jesus’ words at face value. On one level, I get that.

However, I can’t get past the words of Jesus from verse 55 when he says: ‘my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink’. Whether these were actual words of Christ or placed in his mouth by the apostle John becomes something we could argue until the second coming and never resolve. However, on some levels at least it makes sense to take them literally…

Think about it: Jesus descends from heaven to live as God-made-flesh; he is crucified as the result of our rebellion and sin against God, but because of his faithfulness and obedience to his heavenly Father, God raises him to new & eternal life on the third day and takes him home to himself in heaven at the ascension. Now, if we leave Jesus up there, physically removed from our daily existence, struggles and need, how do we access his grace and the life he promises through it? This leaves us with Christianity being a merely intellectual activity in which the weight of responsibility falls on us to raise ourselves to heaven to access the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

On the other hand, if we were to take Jesus’ words literally, that means that the risen and eternal Son of God physically descends to earth again to give himself – body and blood – to live in us (v56). Because the risen Christ now lives in us, he gives to us all that is his – his righteousness, his purity, his life. Because he lives in us, we live forever just as he lives now and for evermore! So through his body and blood, which he gives through the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, the Mass – I really don’t care what name we give to it – Christ lives in us and gives himself to us so we get to live forever. Instead of trusting in our own abilities to reach him in heaven, then, the emphasis is placed on his work of coming to us to give us life.

I can’t help but wonder if the people who left Christ because of the difficulty of this teaching (vv60-66) are representative of those Christian denominations that teach a symbolic understanding of Holy Communion. Maybe that’s a bit too harsh, but I believe that through a literal understanding of Jesus’ words in John 6 we have something real to hang on to – a Saviour who comes to me, meets me in the middle of all the crap of my life in this fallen and messed-up existence, to give himself and his life to me so that he physically lives in my body and his blood pumps through my veins.

We’ll probably be arguing the true presence of Christ in the sacrament until the last day too, but I’m not going to get into that too much. Each according their measure if faith, I reckon. For me, though, Christ’s words give me something tangible to hang on to when everything else turns to dust and smoke.

Peace.