These Holy Mysteries - Eucharist, 1 of 2, Sacred Meal — Michael Flowers

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart and the thoughts of all of our hearts this morning, as we hear, may we hear your word, your living word, Lord, by that Holy Spirit. Your word is your spirit and your life, and so send your word to bring healing to us, deep within.

Your word brings healing. It delivers us from all destruction, faith and sins. So do that today, in the undoing of all that is wrong and disease and disorder. Jesus Christ, our life, our bread, come down from heaven.

We ask today, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Some powerful scriptures this morning, eh? We're going to embark upon probably a couple weeks trying to get our hearts around what we call the Eucharist.

The Eucharist as the New Covenant

Something we do every day of the week, actually, in this church, except for Saturday. We offer the Eucharist Monday through Friday, and on Sunday, and God willing, someday we'll offer it on Saturday too.

We're just sort of inching our way there. But the reason that we do that is because of these scriptures today grappling with some of the ramifications of what Jesus is saying. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no wife in you.

So we all like to eat, right? We get hungry. Are we hungry for the bread of heaven? That's the question this morning. Are we hungry for Jesus? We have to be hungry to eat. And so, if you'll look at the title there, there's a little subtitle there, the Eucharist, These Holy Mysteries.

Do you know where that comes from, that phrase, These Holy Mysteries? It's in the liturgy. It's in the sending that we normally don't do. Okay, so, we're going to do a different sending today, so don't let that throw you off.

But the first sending that we do, we thank God for the sacraments that we have fed upon his body, the sacrament of his body. And that's more of a Western sacrament, Latin, coming from the Latin. And in the prayer book, they try to play both East and West, which I like that.

Because we're right in the middle of East and West, and we're breathing with both lungs, as it were, as Anglicans. So we receive both, you know. And we pray for the communion of all of us to be restored.

Amen. And so, in the second sending, it's more of the Eastern variety. The Eastern Church calls, they use the word sacrament, but they typically call the sacraments mysteries. These Holy Mysteries, the Mysterion, as it were, in Greek.

And so, rather than saying sacrament in that second sending, you'll notice the phrase when we pray it today, These Holy Mysteries, speaking of the body and blood of our Lord. This is going to be the first, probably, of two talks on the Eucharist.

Viewing the Eucharist as it's been handed down from the Old Covenant into the New Covenant. That type of the Eucharist in the Old Covenant, which is proclaiming and prophesying, as it were, the New Covenant in His blood.

Because the New Covenant is the Eucharist. The New Covenant is not the Bible. Jesus says, This is my blood, the New Covenant. He calls His blood, the New Covenant. Now, the New Covenant Scriptures are the New Covenant Scriptures.

But, those letters are not the New Covenant. Jesus is the New Covenant. Amen? There is a difference. Amen. And, that's not always obvious. So, I just feel like we just need to clarify that all the time.

Thank you, Jesus. You are the sacrifice of the New Covenant. Yeah. And so, we're going to try to cover three headings and probably won't get through these today. So, that's why I'm saying it'll probably be two.

I'm just going to watch the time. I have more notes than I can cover, as usual. I'm just going to stop at a certain point. It's going to be abrupt. I'm going to put the brakes on. It's going to be like, let's break.

Come back. Come back next week. So, we're going to look at the New Covenant. We're going to look at the New Covenant. We're going to look at the Eucharist as meal. We're going to look at it as sacrifice.

We're going to look at it as real presence. Meal, sacrifice, and real presence. I've taught the Eucharist a lot of different ways, and I haven't actually covered this in this format yet. So, I'm going to kind of be stuffing my notes here, because this is some good stuff straight out of the Scriptures.

So, here we go. Let's consider meal. You know, right in the first chapters of Genesis, from the very beginning of creation, we're given a picture of God and humanity in table fellowship. Created in the image and likeness of God, man and woman are given dominion over creation.

As stewards of creation. As stewards, they are led to tend to the gift of the garden. The garden is a gift from God. And all of its produce. It's full of His presence. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

As Isaiah saw in the presence of the Lord in Isaiah 6. Human flourishing was in the mind of God. A light and unbroken communion with God, taking care of the good gift of creation. That was the original intent.

And then He said this. You may eat of all the trees of the garden, except for one. Oh, no. What do we fixate on? We don't fixate on all of the trees of the garden and all of the human flourishing that the Father is offering us.

For some reason, we fixate on that one thing that He says was a prohibition. It was put there for a reason. God seems to be withholding something from you. Suggests a serpent. He doesn't really care about you.

He knows that if you eat of this tree, your eyes will be opened and you'll see things as they are. Reality will become real to you. So the symbol of the serpent, later interpreted as Satan by Paul and Romans, began to reason against reason.

To draw away from God and His set boundary. And ever since this internal break in communion, we so easily are drawn away by junk food. Everybody likes junk food. Why? Because it tastes good. It's full of fat, salt, and sugar.

You know, you go to McDonald's in India and it looks just like McDonald's here. Ever since, we've had this affinity to junk food. You have to attract it. Taste it. Sensual. Attract it to the senses. Well, it's a bad meal that derails the human process.

Now, this is all deeply metaphorical stuff. And it's meant to be because it's meant to go deeper than just literal words. When you just think about that, that goes to the core of your being. You understand beyond right here what's going on.

It's through a bad meal that derails the human process. And so we fast forward through to the calling of Abraham and the forming of a holy people. Why? To deal with the problem of sin. To deal with the problem of junk food.

And so the exile into Egypt and the events leading to their exodus, their deliverance, their Passover, out of Egyptian bondage, began to shape them. He begins to shape them according to a sacred meal.

The Passover Meal Forms a Holy People

We read it this morning in Exodus 12, the Passover. He begins to shape their lives around a ritual, a liturgy, and a meal. Sounds familiar. What we do every day, basically, in our lives now. Exodus 12, today's reading, is now connecting the dots.

Forming a people around how to deal. Now that would be a long, arduous journey. A lot of ups and downs and many exiles. It seems like it's really, really not going to happen. Over the course of salvation history.

Until the dawning of Jesus, and that voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way. Yeah, here it comes. And this meal would bring God's people together. It would provide the foundation for their identity as a nation and as a people.

A sacred narrative and a ritual to pass from one generation to the next. And here we are talking about it. The head of the household was to perform a priestly function In selecting the offering of a lamb.

A sacrifice of blood. The lamb's blood would be drained. Sprinkled on the doorpost. The flesh would be eaten of this lamb. And it was described in a very particular way. And get this, the Passover would not be complete by merely sacrificing the lamb.

The Passover was complete when you ate the lamb. Jesus died for our sins. But there's more to that. Unless you eat the lamb. You will have no life. You see these dots. Fast forwarding a bit. Jeremiah and the prophets would see a new meal taking place on God's holy mountain.

A feast with choice wines and the finest of meats. Isaiah talks about seeing something in the Spirit prophetically. And then we fast forward to Jesus. The one who spoke the world into existence in his pre-incarnate state.

Jesus as the Word and the Host of the Sacred Meal

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. The Word was with God and the Word was God. He was there in that first chapter of Genesis. The Father and the Spirit making creation. First creation.

Which now we call Old Creation. This divine Logos is the Greek word for Word. So much more pregnant with meaning than just words. It's ultimate universal reason and meaning. The eternal Word takes on a human body to share our human nature we say in the liturgy.

To live and die as one of us. To reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all. He engages in table fellowship with everyone. All the wrong people. He was trying to get ahead in the echelon and hierarchy of the temple.

But he's got everything wrong. So you again see the prostitutes, the sinners, the outcasts. What's he doing? He's bringing his people back together. Out of classism and ethnocentrism. He's got it in trouble.

He brings his people back together for what? A sacred meal. A sacred meal. I'm on 42. We're doing good. The theme of sacrifice involves the elements of temple, priesthood, the sacrificial offerings themselves.

Sacrifice as Thanksgiving and Reconciliation

There's a lot more, but just think about those. The word sacrifice seems foreign, really, to our modern sensibility. Sacrifice was understood as taking some aspect of creation and returning it back to God in thanksgiving.

It was taking something that was a gift that was created by God and offering it back to God in thanksgiving. That was sacrifice. Now God doesn't need our sacrifices. You can read in, sometimes in Psalm 50, if you want to look at that, what he says about himself.

He needs nothing. God really needs nothing. The logic of sacrifice is seen in the results of the act. As we return thanksgiving back to God, we come into alignment with God, the one true God, through these acts of worship.

And so elements like adore, to adore God, is taking place. Adoratio is the Latin. Adora, which means mount to mount. That means to adore God. Mount to mount. And just imagine the breath of God being blown into you when you worship him and you pray and you cry out his name.

Face to face, mouth to mouth, he's giving you his life. Remember, he breathed the bond after the resurrection. He breathed into the disciples. He's reenacting Genesis creation, but this is new creation.

That's what we receive when we adore God. And it's all for the purpose of reconciliation. Cilia, the Greek word where we get reconciliation as part of the word, means eyelash. Cilia, right? Eyelash to eyelash, to reconcile my eyelash to God's eyelash.

We're once again being reconciled face to face, that's what reconciliation is. And that's what reconciliation is with us, is rubs and scissors. When we need to be reconciled. We're no longer doing this, right?

We're turning, we're saying, catch my eyelash. That's how close we are now. We're restored eyelash to eyelash. We're reconciled. The big deal is being reconciled with God, and out of that we can be reconciled with each other.

To be lined up in divine alignment. Like the word orthodoxy, right? It doesn't just mean right theology. Orthodoxy means right praise. Doxa, glory. Orthodoxy, right praise. But what's the big deal? Because if we're not formed in orthodoxy, the result is idolatry.

Because we're made to worship, and we'll worship. That's not the question, whether you'll worship or not. You will. And it's very, very, very, it's just so easy. Because we can think about idolatry as some sort of ancient pagan thing that we don't have to worry about anymore, right?

No, no. It's a very subtle thing, and it's very deceptive. Idolatry is extremely deceptive. And we have to say, search me, oh God, and know my heart. On a regular basis, get rid of our idols. Capitalism, everything that we stand for, is idolatry.

The reason why we give attention to some nations, and not to others, is because of what those nations have given to us. Oil receiving them. Is that oil? We buddy up with them. So, this is the kind of national idolatry that's going on.

But it's very subtle. It goes right down to the individual. And we really do have to say, search me, oh God, and know my heart. And try me. And see if there's any wicked way of me. Because, Lord, I want to be eyelashed to eyelash.

You know? I want to feel the breath of God blowing in me. As I adore Him, and as I am reconciled to Him. That's what this altar is all about. That's where it's taking us. Into adoration and reconciliation.

And so, Jesus is walking around, fully human and fully divine. And He's in the midst of a situation where the temple has really gone wrong. The priesthood has really gone wrong. And there's not right alignment in Israel, in the first century, when Jesus comes onto the scene.

We see that in the way He was treated. And, there's this figure called John the Baptist, who was to introduce Jesus to the world. Now, John was out in the wilderness, performing priestly functions, because the temple had gone wrong.

You see, John is the son of Zechariah, the priest. And Elizabeth, who comes from a priestly family. That means that John was slated to be a priest. And so, John is a priest, but he's not going in the temple.

He's gone out of the temple. Because, there was a prophecy in the Prophets, saying that in Ezekiel, where the glory of God had departed from the temple. And when Jesus is presented in the temple, the glory of God reappears.

This is the glory of God, that John talks about. And so, John is out baptizing, like what people would do in the temple. They would go and they would take ritual baths. He was giving ritual baths. He was baptizing.

And so, from going to the temple, people would go to the temple to have their sins forgiven. Well, John was doing the same thing. It's for the remission of sins, right? It's for repentance. And when the people came to the temple, they would go through a mikvah, or a bathing ritual.

John was doing the same thing, and baptizing with water. And then, when Jesus comes on the scene, he looks at Jesus, and he says this. He says, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

This is the new temple. Who is the new sacrifice. Who is the new exodus. And he's getting ready to enact the new exodus. Because he is the new temple, and he is the new sacrifice. He is the new priesthood.

And he's getting baptized in the muddy waters of the Jordan. Really wild. People would go to the temple to have their sins forgiven, right? Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven. And hey, that got him in trouble.

And he says, Well, just so you know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins, rise up and walk. Oh yeah. This is the new temple. This is the new priesthood. He came to the temple to be instructed by the law.

Scribes were there. Well, Jesus teaches and says that, You have heard it said that I say to you. He's the new rabbi. He's the new teacher. Amen. In Matthew's gospel, at the Lord's Supper, he's celebrating a meal in need.

The Eucharist as the Sacrifice of the New Covenant

But as Jesus gives us the words of institution, which we heard actually Paul replicate this morning, he does something different to the Passover words of institution. Taking the Passover bread, which is a sacrificial meal, he says, This is my body which is given to you.

He's saying that I am the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. This is my body. And this is before the crucifixion. And so the disciples, the twelve disciples there had no idea what he was saying.

They had no idea. And then taking the third cup, which would be that cup that was lifted up at that time. This is the chalice of my blood. This is the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which is poured out for you.

Again, this is sacrifice. This is sacrificial language. Once poured out in the temple, now is poured out for the life of the world, for the whole world. In the temple, when the animals would be slain, the priest would catch the blood of the animal in a bowl, a cup.

And only the priests would do that. And this is the chalice of my blood. This is the cup of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you do this, do this in memory of me.

Do this in memory of me. Now, when he's doing all of this, he's looking forward to the next day because that's Maundy Thursday. And he's thinking about Good Friday. And he's giving prophetic enactment of what will take place on Calvary.

Not in the temple, not right in the city gates of Jerusalem, but outside the camp as it were. Dying on a cross as a criminal, in great shame. He is initiating them, then, as priests of a new sacrifice.

To be fulfilled on Good Friday, the crucifixion as sacrifice of the new covenant. The crucified Jesus. Any person watching the crucifixion that day would have never seen what was going on. Not even the 12th.

This man is becoming sin. He's taking on the sin of the world. He's feeling the weight of sin on him. And he looks just like a mere criminal on the cross. It wouldn't occur to them that this is God's land.

This is God's land. Here on the cross, he's shamed. It's taking away, at this time, sin. Foolishness to the Greeks and a simple blot to the Jews. Jesus gives the interpretive key to the moment. You see, the scapegoat, upon whom the sins of the world, outside the camp, where the wrath of God was falling, he was falling upon sin.

Blood, Water, and the New Temple

The blood from his side. What do we see? Blood and water coming. We see the high priest, sprinkling blood on the people. The sacrifice of the priest, offering himself for the whole world. Because Ezekiel's prophecy, again, Ezekiel, who was a temple priest, said the glory of Yahweh moved away from the temple.

But one day the glory will return from the temple. Water, Ezekiel says, will flow forth from the side of the temple to provide life-giving water. And this is the life-giving water that is pouring from the side of Jesus Christ for the life of the world.

Amen. So, I'm going to stop there. And we'll pick this up next week. And we'll begin again in the midst of the sacrifice of the Son of God. But it's just a beautiful image, knowing that this painful agony, this horrendous act, actually is bringing life.

Life and hope and faith and reconciliation for the whole of creation. That's why we contemplate this this week as we look upon the cross of Christ and we learn how to do the Eucharist, the thanksgiving for our redemption.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.