Never Minimize the Table

Every Christian church practices communion or the Lord’s Table. At our church, we share around the table most months on the first Sunday of the month. I do not have any hard evidence to back up my claim, but the anecdotes from other pastors seem to confirm my thought – many Christians do not give the attention our Lord commands to the ordinance of the Lord’s Table (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Most pastors tell me only a fraction of the church’s members regularly participate in the worship around the table. For some reason, many evangelicals do not recognize the importance of the event.

The night of his betrayal, Jesus instituted what we call communion or the Lord’s Table when he ate and drank with his disciples in the upper room.  As Jesus held the cup and the bread before the men, he declared the New Covenant between God and man, a covenant of grace accomplished by his death on the cross. Later, the Apostle Paul would teach the Corinthian church that Jesus’s words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” applied to them as well since they too were disciples of Jesus.

As Baptists, we believe the Lord’s Table is a memorial service reminding us in symbols of the work done by Jesus on our behalf. The meaning of the table should call us together for a wonderful celebration. In fact, I would say, the Lord’s Table services of our church should be the highest attended worship events in the life of our church. There are several reasons to say so.

Because Jesus Commands It

We recognize two commands from our Lord. The Great Commission directs the church’s mission, “Go make disciples of all the nations.” The second command, to celebrate around the table, directs the church’s message - the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. When a local church calls its members to come to the table, every follower of Jesus should obey his command. The command, however, is not an empty rule.

Because Our Souls Need It

We do not believe the cup and the bread contain any grace when taken or become the blood and body of our Lord. Nowhere does the New Testament teach this. Our souls do not need the elements at the table to acquire more grace from God. Instead, our souls need the reminder of what the elements represent. Our Lord has given us in physical form a picture of a spiritual reality.

What happens at the table is a picture of the gospel. Our need for the gospel was not a one-time event met the day of our conversions. We need the gospel daily. Like the Galatian church, we are prone to return to our own efforts to gain God’s approval. The table reminds us that God’s forgiveness of our sins and God’s imputation of righteousness was secured by the life and death of Jesus. When you come to the table and take the bread and the cup, you remind yourself that what you are before God is because of what you have outside of yourself, the person and work of Jesus. The table humbles us as we consider our failings and Jesus’ sufficiency. To neglect the table is to work against your own your own soul.

Because the Church Benefits

The blessings of the table are not only personal, but they are also corporate. The table promotes the unity of the church like nothing else can.

A Sunday School campaign may bring a seasonal fellowship. A building program, a ministry launch, or a community event may help the church to feel connected among all its members. Nothing, however, unites the church like the table. Here, we all affirm our shared need for a savior. Here, we all declare our sinfulness. Here, no judgmental spirits exist because we all know, “It was my sin that held him there” not the sin of the others in the room. Here, we all look to Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith. Here, we are one in Christ. Our ethnicities, social standing, age, and our sex fade as we all rest in the glory of Jesus Christ. No greater occasion exists to promote church unity than the gathering around the Lord’s Table.

Because the Gospel is Presented

There are many benefits to regular participation around the table. Have you considered the benefits to our children? Our curious children want to know what and why we do communion. The question most of them ask at some point is, “When can I take a cup or bread?” That question is invitation for you as a parent to preset the gospel to your son or daughter. When you expose them to the church’s practice of the Lord’s Table, you expose them to the gospel in a beautiful way imagined by our Lord. Should you neglect the table, you keep from your children a means of giving them the gospel. Just imagine the potential conversations with your child as you answer their questions about the Lord’s Table showing them Jesus in every response!

In addition to his wonderful commentary, Matthew Henry produced A Short Catechism about the Lord’s Supper. Question 31…

Q: What benefits do they receive by it?
A: Their faith is hereby strengthened, their resolutions are confirmed, their comforts increased, and they have an earnest of the everlasting feast

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Remember The Holocaust

Now 80 years after the end of World War II, Europe’s Jewish population has not yet recovered to pre-Holocaust numbers. The magnitude of the evil against the Jewish people cannot be exaggerated.

Unknown by most and forgotten by others is Holocaust Remembrance Day. On the Hebrew calendar Holocaust Remembrance Day was Monday, May 6, 2024. The date moves within a small window and corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The 2025 Remembrance is April 24.  Earlier this morning, President Joe Biden delivered the keynote address in keeping with every president since 1993 when the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened.

The website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a fascinating collection of stories, photographs, videos, and online tools for learning what happened when Adolph Hitler and The Third Reich concocted The Final Solution which delivered to Europe the systematic murder of six million Jews. Now 80 years after the end of World War II, Europe’s Jewish population has not yet recovered to pre-Holocaust numbers. The magnitude of the evil against the Jewish people cannot be exaggerated. Genocide is the only appropriate description of what happened as many watched in horror but did not act.

One Family's Bravery

Brenda’s family acted. Her mother was a young girl at the time living in the east of The Netherlands near the German border. Her mother’s parents hid Jewish refugees in their home as Nazis patrolled the villages and countryside seeking whom they may devour. Brenda’s grandfather was sent to a work camp when the Nazis discovered her family was hiding Jews in their well.

Never Forget

Few of us can remember those days because most of us were not yet born. Those few still living were mere children when the world was on fire from 1933-1945. The Jewish hatred on display at the University of Minnesota and St. Olaf University is the local expression of what is happening on college campuses across the country. Those who remember wonder if the current generations know anything about the horrors at Auschwitz, Dachau, Flossenburg, Krakow, Neuengamme, Warsaw, or any of the 1,000 concentration camps erected for the purpose of eliminating Jews. Shockingly, there continues to be a growing populus that embraces Holocaust denial.

What Should Christians Remember?

1. Remember: the extreme darkness of the human heart (Jeremiah 17:9). The Bible makes no attempt to soften the human capacity to do evil both individually (Genesis 4:8) and nationally (Matthew 2:16). The reader cringes when reading the biblical accounts. We also cringe when we witness the darkness of the human heart in the present, but we should not be surprised. In God’s common grace he restrains some evil (2 Thessalonians 2:7). I shudder to imagine what we would do to each other if he did not.

2. Remember: human advancement cannot and will not solve the problem of the darkness resident in the human heart. In a 1997 speech about the Holocaust, Justice Antonin Scalia said, “The one message I want to convey today is that you will have missed the most frightening aspect of it all, if you do not appreciate that it happened in one of the most educated, most progressive, most cultured countries in the world.” The human heart cannot be improved; it must be reborn. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can do this.

3. Remember: the potential to do nothing in the face of evil. About danger or evil situations most say something like, “If I was in that situation, I would not let that happen.” I hope that’s true, but I do wonder if we would. God grant us grace to be as bold as lions when evil shows its ugly face.

4. Remember: the possibility to act courageously in the face of evil. It is not a mere literary device when the Bible describes Christians as soldiers fully armed for battle (Ephesians 6). Our Lord outfits with armament and deploys us into conflict to fight against evil emboldened by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

5. Remember: the sacrifices to liberate Jews and their supporters from concentration camps. Nearly 200,000 Americans were killed in the European Theatre. Those boots on the ground were there to stop Hitler and to free Jews and other captives. The price for liberty was the blood of the Allied Forces led by the men of the U.S. Army and its infantry divisions. Some gave all to free many.

6. Remember: Christians reject antisemitism in all its expressions. We follow a Jew. His name is Jesus. He comes from Nazareth in the north of Israel. Jewish religious leaders declared him a blasphemer and demanded his public execution. The occupying Roman authorities ordered his crucifixion, and Roman soldiers carried out the murder of our Lord (Acts 4:10; 7:52). This Jew rose from the dead and will return to his people and to his throne. We read a book written almost exclusively by Jews and order our lives around its teachings believing the book is the very Word of God. The book teaches us God loves the descendants of Abraham. He is their Father, and they are his sons and daughters. They belong to him, and he has brought us who follow Christ into their ranks as his children. We love those whom God loves and stand tall against all demonstrations of hatred toward Jews.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Sweet Dreams

It’s time for a five-year checkup. I can report there has not been much change in my patterns, but I seem to have survived. For my benefit and hopefully for yours, I thought a return to a previous prescription might prove helpful. This Musing first appeared April 30, 2019.

For the most part I really enjoyed my teen years. I had good friends, went to a good school, enjoyed good health, hung out with a cutie girlfriend, and had good hair. There is one thing I miss from those years, sleep. I could fall asleep late at night and dream deeply until late morning. Those days are long gone. Nowadays, I’d love to sleep uninterrupted for more than three hours. Maybe you would too.

I don’t have any medical advice to offer, but I can direct you to God’s Word.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. Psalm 3:5

David pens his assertion between cries to God for help. Apparently, life isn’t going so well for the king. In the remainder of the psalm, he writes about his fear, his conflicts in relationships, the bullying he's received, and the overwhelming odds stacked against him.

Sleep? Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Maybe you know the feeling. You’d love a good night’s sleep, but the realities of life simply get in the way.

• Fear of tomorrow’s exams or work assignments or medical appointments keeps you awake.

• Fear for your children’s safety while driving through the night back from college, away from your house for the evening, or when they’ve threatened to do something harmful brings you back to consciousness in the middle of the night.

• The to-do list was supposed to get shorter today, but now it’s midnight, and the list is longer, and you’re so tired.

• You’ve been in the hospital caring for mom or dad, daughter or son, sister or brother, and you’d love to sleep like a baby, but you can’t. What if something happens to them while you’re sleeping?

Did you notice where David’s lullaby appears in the psalm? It’s right in the middle of the problems. Somehow, some way, David can sleep when life is terrible. You can too.

For David, there is a restful reliance upon God that delivers to him good sleep, the kind that refreshes, strengthening God’s child for the inevitable battles of the coming day.

Maybe it’s this simple: O, Lord, when I was little, I used to pray, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep." My faith was childlike. You woke me every morning in those early years after a good night’s sleep. I was full of strength for the day. Now I’m older, and tomorrow’s realities are more daunting than when I was 6 or 16, but my confidence and my request remain the same. I rest in you to protect me and those whom I love while I sleep. Would you grant me the rest of mind and body to sustain me tomorrow as you did today?

There’s a beautiful phrase from my favorite hymn, Be Thou My Vision, “Thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.” So many thoughts enter my mind late at night and early in the morning. I’m better when those thoughts are carried along by the best thought, “The Lord sustains me.”

May God grant you the sweet sleep of those sustained by him.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Surrounded by Family and Friends but Feeling Alone

This week, nine years ago, my dad died. At 74 he lived longer than his father, his mother, his brothers, his sisters, many of his male cousins, a few of his nephews, and some of the females in his family. The gene pool leaves much to be desired.

Later that summer, our older son Michael married the former Lauren Sparkman at a beautiful ceremony near her New Hampshire home. My recently widowed mother was in attendance. Surrounded by her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren, she appeared lost. Her broad smile hid a sense that she was out of place among all her descendants at a glorious family event. I cannot recall anytime prior to that moment where I observed this gregarious and extroverted woman so lost in the moment.

The curse of death delivers many blows. There is nothing glorious about death. Until the day I die, I will stand in opposition to the mantra “Death is a part of life.” Death is a villain, an enemy, and an intruder into the most joyous moments of life, like it was for my mom that warm July day nearly nine years ago.

God warned our first parents that death, an entirely preventable reality for Adam and Eve, would bring separation, and that it did. First, God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden, separating the creation from its creator. Then, death separated families. Abel was the first taken from those who loved him, creating an open seat at the table, a vacancy in the field, and an emptiness at any joyful family gatherings. In time, death passed on all men because all have sinned. The universal reality prompts individual consequences. Some, like my mom, experience a sense of lostness, a feeling of uncertainty about what to do on a given day or how to function at a gathering. Left to itself, the feeling produces isolation, anger at God and people, sinful coping behaviors, suspicion, or foolish decisions. Death has an insatiable appetite that will devour the living as it consumed the dead.

While we rest in hope of the resurrection, Christians acknowledge the lingering consequences of death, including, for some, a sense of lostness. The Bible teaches us that the complete victory over death occurs at the return of our Lord and not before (1 Thessalonians 4). Even those who have died in faith (like my dad and mom) have not yet attained complete victory over death. They and all like them await the resurrection of their immortal bodies (1 Corinthians 15). It follows, then, that we who are alive and remain experience ongoing effects of death. The effects may diminish over time but are not likely to end until we are with the Lord or until the Lord returns.

How might Christians respond? A few pastoral suggestions:

1. You’re not likely alone in your feeling of lostness. Knowledge that others who are walking the same road as you will not eliminate the feeling, but the knowledge can help you when you’re thinking, “Am I the only one who feels like this? What’s wrong with me?” There’s nothing wrong with you. You are experiencing a consequence of death, a painful and confusing consequence shared by many others (1 Corinthians 10:13).

2. Weep with those who weep. When my dad died, life went on for me. I still had my wife and children. My social functions did not change. I hurt, but I was not lost. Little was the same for my mom as it was during her nearly 50 years of marriage. She drove alone to the church building for Sunday gatherings, walked alone from her car to the front doors, and sat alone in her familiar pew. When not with my sister, she drank her morning coffee alone and ate meals alone. Widowers and suffering parents can relate. Admonitions to care for widows and orphans are financial but do not end at finances. Our Lord directs us to “visit orphans and widows in their trouble” (James 1:27). The necessity to care for one group of the bereaved is true for all who grieve death. How one individual cares for another will vary widely depending on age, distance, finances, and responsibilities. What cannot happen is that we forget that the bereaved are in trouble and need the help of other Christians even if the sufferer says, “I’m fine.”

3. Pray and pray again. When we read the gospels, we see Jesus slip away into isolation to pray (Matthew 14:23). Wisdom suggests the saftest place when isolated is in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 7:5). If death brings a sensation of lostness or the reality of aloneness, the believer finds her greatest comfort in the presence of the Lord (Job 38-42). Open Psalm 23 and pray it back to God. Do the same in Romans 8 or 1 Corinthians 15. Position yourself in prayer to receive the warm presence of your Heavenly Father.

Until the Lord makes all things new…

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Reading on Your Smartphone? You Might Want to Read This

Your most valuable asset is not your home, an heirloom, your retirement account, or even your health. Your most valuable asset is time. God does not grant each of us the same time duration, but the time he grants to each of us remains constant.

All of us live 24-hour days. We sell our time to our employers who compensate us with a mutually agreed value. The energy utilized by our minds and bodies during waking hours requires us to devote a significant amount of time to recovery via the unconscious state we call sleep. And the remainder of our time not used on domestic responsibilities, we consume as we choose. How we choose to use the rest of our time determines most of our immediate and long-term futures. Unlike generations before us, we face a new challenge in the use of our time – the cellphone.

According to the Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans between the ages of 18-49 own a smartphone – in other words, everyone. Smartphones are great servants and brutal masters. Like your phone, mine has apps for directions, travel, dining, scheduling, exercise, sermon prep, journaling, podcasts, retail, and much more. Also, on my phone are games and social media apps and an Internet browser. These last apps are the danger zone where my phone becomes my master and not my servant. Here’s how I defend myself against the tyrant.

Smartphones are great servants and brutal masters.

I am a selectively disciplined person. That means I choose the things where I want to be disciplined. Because I am old, I am very disciplined about caffeine intake after 3:00pm. This came to me the hard way. Sleep will not be what I desire if I choose a Pepsi over ice served in a glass later than mid-afternoon. On the other hand, I have a very difficult time ignoring the craving to request a handmade vanilla malt served to me by the equally sweet Brenda anytime after the sun goes down. I could satisfy the passion in a six-ounce glass, but why should I when a sixteen-ounce glass is so much better!

I’d love to tell you that I am the master of my iPhone like I used to be the master of my golden retriever, but I am not. I could tell Jack the dog to stay, and he would. My phone does not so readily obey my commands. Simply, I lack discipline to control my phone. I don’t have the maturity necessary to master it. Because I know this, I have made a simple choice regarding my phone that guards my time so that my phone is my servant not my master.

MANAGING APPS

I regularly delete and add the same apps over and again. I haven’t done the research, but I would not be surprised to discover that social media apps dominate smartphone use. A few years ago, my kids suggested Instagram. I posted little and grazed much. My kids’ pages make me smile. Fishing, baseball, basketball, skiing, golf, and exercise accounts deliver instruction and recreation. I quickly discovered that an hour could go by scrolling from one reel to the next. The same is true for Twitter. I can be an information junkie. For me, Twitter is like an encyclopedia. There I discover a wide variety of interesting places, people, experiences, events, and ideas. It’s my time nemesis, and I know it. So, I’ve made the choice to install social media apps when I want to use them and uninstall them when I am finished. Other apps, Facebook for example, I choose not to have on my phone. If they are not on my phone, they cannot master me. Until I become more disciplined, this will be my solution.

LIMITING GAMES

Back in the late 1980s, CBS premiered Star Trek, The Next Generation. One episode centered on a theme where nearly the entire crew including Captain Picard became addicted to a video game played on a personal device. A disastrous outcome was predictable. A cool feature of our phones is the games they contain. They can pass the time while waiting to board the aircraft or sitting alone in the cold doctor’s office. They have their place and their usefulness.

I’ve determined that boring is better than bondage.

To protect me from the dictator, I allow only two games on my phone, neither of which challenges me to get a new high score, complete the task in a faster time, or compete against online opponents. To most people Ticket to Ride and Monopoly are boring, and to tell the truth, they can be for me too, but I’ve determined that boring is better than bondage. I cannot afford to be captive to my phone. Time is too precious and too fleeting to spend it playing games on a 3 x 5 screen.

You’ve given me your time by reading today’s Musing, for that I thank you. Your gift of time to me (by reading what I write) helps me make the best use of the time God gives to me. In return, I hope I’ve given you food for thought to make the best use of the time God gives to you.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.