Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Two Tables

Two Tables

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When we come to this point in our worship service we must not take the furniture for granted. This is a table, not an altar. We are here to feast, not watch; to remember Christ’s sacrifice, not reenact it. It is Christ who is our mediator and has brought us into communion; thus, this is His table at which He presides, and He passes the plate around.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]We sit on the shadowlands side of the table, while our brothers and sisters of the faith who have already died are seated on the high countries side.[/epq-quote]Here we are a family of saints, gathered around a table. We should think of it as a really big table with our Lord Jesus sitting at the head saying grace. We sit on the shadowlands side of the table, while our brothers and sisters of the faith who have already died are seated on the high countries side As the plate is passed, since we are His body, when your neighbor hands the plate to you, it is also Christ handing the plate to you. We are a family, God is our Father, Christ is our brother, and the Spirit unites us together as one.

There is a warning though. Some sit at this table every week, then go out and look an awful lot like they would rather be in the family of Satan. Friendship with the world, is enmity with God. God’s family feasts, laughs, and loves. Satan’s family bites, devours, and kills. At this table there is joy, there is glory, there is an eternal fountainhead of love. At Satan’s table you come to feed, and instead you are devoured. If you insist on feasting upon your selfish lusts and prides, you will find in the end that they have eaten you instead.

But at this table God serves us Himself. He is all joy, all glory, all delight, all goodness, all nourishment, and all life. In Him is no shadow of sorrow, only joy: a boundless, limitless, eternal joy. He has prepared for us a most sumptuous feast of the richest and most satisfying fare. He gives us the best, because He is that which is best.

Communion Homily 08-27-17

Communion Homily 08-27-17

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There is no accident that before us is one loaf and one cup comprising one meal for us to share in. We know that these elements are a reminder to us of Christ’s broken body and spilled blood. Yet, we should frequently be reminded not just of what He did, but also remember what He accomplished in being poured out to death. We often remember the cause, but overlook the effect.

He redeemed a bride; she is comprised of many members, but makes up one body, with Jesus as the head. This meal is made of a loaf of bread––made from many kernels of wheat––and a cup of wine––pressed from many grapes. These symbols here are not to remind simply of Christ’s atoning work, but also of what he atoned: us, His people, His Bride. We are many individual grains, many individual grapes, but now joined together as one in fellowship with Him, and He is in fellowship with the Father, and both the Father and Son are in fellowship with the Spirit.

Thus, remember not only Christ’s broken body and blood, but also the union you now have with each other, and the entire congregation of Saints, past, present and future. Our unity can only result from the trinity in unity, and from the mediatorial work of our Lord Jesus, with whom we are made One. So come and welcome to Jesus.

Hands Full of Christ

Hands Full of Christ

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We are taught in various passages that we are to “lay hold on eternal life” (1 Tim. 6:12 & 19) and “lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb. 6:18). Grasping eternality with our human hands may seem like a strange imperative for Scripture to place upon us mere mortals. It is like asking us to make circles square, or water that parches rather than slakes thirst, or count to infinity three times.

But by faith we do in fact “lay hold” of that which is infinite, bottomless, shoreless, and measureless. As Hudson Taylor once well remarked: “[Faith] is not less than sight but MORE.”<fn>http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/hudsontaylor/hudsontaylorv2/hudsontaylorv212.htm</fn> Insofar as we still think of faith as less sturdy than the reason which our five senses inform, we display how deceived we are by our materialistic age.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]Insofar as we still think of faith as less sturdy than the reason which our five senses inform, we display how deceived we are by our materialistic age.[/epq-quote]Think upon the bread & wine of the Lord’s Supper, for there our hands are full of Christ, and by faith we acknowledge that beneath the elements, Christ is really present with us, though He be seated a the Father’s right hand. As we pass the bread, and hold it in our hands, if we have faith in the Christ which these elements signify, we indeed hold Him. The Belgic Confession (article 35)<fn>https://www.christkirk.com/our-church/book-of-worship-faith-practice/</fn> puts it this way:

He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls.

So, do not simply hold bread in your hands with Christ absent from your hand of faith. He is presented to you here in these signs, that by them your faith may be nourished, built up, and sustained.

Ben Zornes