DO THIS

Good morning...evening...mid-day friends and neighbors. There is a common link among Christians know as COMMUNION. It is known as communion, The Lord's Supper, Eucharist, The Table, The Lord's Table, The Cup and the Wine and many other names. It is taken by some daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. The elements run the gamut of wine and wafers...Welches grape juice and little tiny squares of cracker to loaves of bread and wine. One of the most moving communion services was in my living room with hotdog buns and Orange Crush. Some view it as symbolic obedience while others view it as the bread and wine turning into the actual body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation).

I have the honor of presiding over the table this month as Smyrna Assembly. The table is a time of remembrance of the Death, the Burial, and ultimately the Resurrection of Jesus...who became the propitiation (substitute and satisfaction) in our place. Isaiah 53 paints a prophetic portrait of what we are remembering. There are 5 areas listed that were dealt with on the cross:

1. griefs/sicknesses
2. sorrows/pains
3. transgressions/going beyond known limits
4. iniquities/lawless rebellion
5. unrest/no peace or wholeness

These 5 things were dealt with 2000 years ago...and the cause and effect reaches through the space-time continuum into 2008. When we take the bread and wine...we remember what HE DID for us on the cross. Here's what He did...so we would not have to:

1. griefs/sickness: He bore them
2. sorrows/pains: He carried them
3. transgressions: He was pierced/wounded for them
4. iniquities: He was crushed
5. unrest/no peace He was chastened for our well being

Isaiah reveals how all of this took place in Isaiah 53:5:

BY HIS STRIPES/SCOURGING....WE ARE HEALED.

I spend so much time trying to do what already was done. I am constantly bearing, carrying, wounding, crushing, chastening myself in an attempt at SELF-ATONEMENT...when what I need to do is REMEMBER what HE HAS ALREADY DONE...and accept by FAITH what satisfies God (propitiation/substitute/satisfaction: I John 1:6-10; I John 2:1,2)

The communion table points to the D and the B...but the RESURRECTION is what makes it have any worth at all. Without the RESURRECTION OF JESUS...all you have is another historical martyr. Because He lives...we live.

Love and Blessed Communion
Rodney "Pass The Bread and Wine" Boyd