I used to play a video game on my Apple iiC, and whenever I’d get to the final level there was a glitch. I tried to troubleshoot, but my gaming career always ended in frustration, and failure, rather than in triumphant joy.
The world isn’t what it ought to be. There’s a glitch in the whole thing. Sin and sickness, shame and sorrow are the operating system. We look inside of us and around us and find as the Apostle Paul said, “For I know that in me dwelleth no good thing (Rom. 7:18).†Reach for worldly pleasures and just as you close your grasp upon them, they fade to ether. Try every which way to satisfy that longing for joy, but still it won’t come and it won’t stay put.
So, you wreck everything and everyone that gets in the way of your pursuit of happiness, but still joy eludes you. You’re the glitch in the system. We’ve broken the whole thing, ruined all the joys, soiled all the glories, and made a hash out of ourselves and this world God gave us.
Jesus famously told Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again (Jn. 3:7).†Our old way of doing things was broken, and we needed to be made new. But Jesus didn’t come to make new men in a dead world. To borrow a bit from CS Lewis, He came into this glitch-riddled world, plunged down into the depths of our misery and woe by His incarnation, death, and burial; then He came rushing up, towing in hand this whole world.
We celebrate in the Lord’s Supper both our individual salvation, and the salvation of the world. Those in Christ partake of His new life, represented here by this bread and wine. Christ is reigning over this world until His new life pervades every corner of our planet. In part, we remember here that Jesus made new men for the new world which He is making.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus…
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