Holy Week
Thursday, April
13, 2017
“These are your instructions for eating this meal: Be fully dressed, wear your sandals, and
carry your walking stick in your hand. Eat
the meal with urgency, for this is the Lord’s Passover. Exodus 12:11(NLT)
For I pass on
to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord
Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This
is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine
after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his
people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you
drink it.” For every time you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes
again. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26(NLT)
Of all the people I’ve ever known, my Dad was the itchy feet king! He was ready to travel at all times. His wanderlust[ii]
was born of a natural sense of curiosity about what’s beyond the next bend in
the road. He had an intense desire to
see America, particularly the historical sights, up-close. There was a map hung on a cork board in our
house that had stick pins at places to which Mom and Dad had travelled over the
years. Strings were tied from one place to
another, indicating a planned next trip, or a completed recent trip. My Dad was always ready to travel!
Through Moses God told Israel the same thing; eat this meal with your shoes on
and travelling sticks in hand; be ready to travel! The Passover is the meal
of haste, eaten with the understanding the call to move-out
of Egypt might be trumpeted at any time.
Our Lord’s Supper feast is also fast-food for the Christian
church. With this meal we remember the
Passover of Jesus’ last night on earth and, much like the fundamental message
of the Passover, where Jews remember the bitterness of bondage in Egypt, we
remember the bitterness of sin’s bondage, from which we’ve been released.
There’s an urgency about this call to the table. In one sense the grace we experience (or should
experience) whenever we celebrate this communion is reason enough to hurry to
the table. Who is not in need of God’s
grace, pressed-down, shaken-together, and running-over?[iii]
But there is also another reason to keep walking stick and sandals at
the ready: going home. I recall those road trips with Mom and Dad,
and how, because there was no money for motels, we camped. My brother and I set up the tent every night,
slept on the ground in sleeping bags, then broke it down and packed it in the
station wagon every morning. By the time
the trip was over our parents had two pooped kids! (Well, maybe that was their plan).
But the best part of the trip…always…was arriving back at Holly Lane in
Smithtown. Coming back home, worn-out,
full of travel memories, but home…HOME!
The New Covenant is like that; starting place (in Christ) is also the
destination. Just like we drove away
from the little house on Holly Lane on our new adventure the first two weeks of
August every year, it was to the little house on Holly Lane we returned. And it somehow looked different when we got
back – so welcoming; so right.
We are walking pilgrims now, having started our journey with, and
in-Christ. The cross is the beginning of
that pilgrimage, and we walk by faith towards a real place that is our real home,
not one made with hands. We start in
Christ and are always moving towards Him.
The moments on this trail are filled with tests, trials, opportunities
and some heartache as we see the tragedies and triumphs of the grandest experiment
since creation – the making of a people who will love God and enjoy Him
forever.
For You Today
Got your shoes on, walking
stick in hand? Are you ready for that?
NOTES
I Title
image: By MRabe!
(Self-photographed), via Wikimedia
Commons and By Hysocc (Own work), via Wikimedia
Commons
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