We Have Forgotten Jesus Christ, Our Great God, And Saviour, Blessed Forever
At our last gathering at The Table, we heard God instruct Joseph that he should call the name of The Son that would be born of his virgin wife, Jesus.
We saw that the purpose of God implicit in The Name of His only Begotten Son is to save us from our sins.
We understood that an organ of being saved from our sins is to be reconciled back to God and to be simultaneously healed from every sickness and disease.
We saw that the simplicity of enjoying the providence of our Father for peace with Him and for the instantaneous healing of our mortal bodies is by calling upon The Name of His Son, Jesus.
And we concluded our meal by rejoicing in our salvation through The Name of The Son of God, Jesus, Whose Name is called Wonderful:
Wonderful in saving us from fear and ill health!
Wonderful in reconciling us back to His Father and in healing our bodies!
That Wonderful Name, Jesus
That Wonderful Name, Jesus
That Wonderful Name, Jesus
There is no other Name I know
Today, we would seek to know why our Lord Jesus paid in Himself the price for our reconciliation with God and for us to be healed.
We will look to our mothers who are with us at The Table to help us in our journey to knowing why our Lord Jesus took upon Himself my sickness and your disease so that we were freed from their discomfort.
Our mammas may testify to not only identifying as one with their babies when they are sick, but that they also earnestly desire that if it were possible, let the baby’s sufferings come upon them so that the baby may be relieved.
Let us suppose a mother could, and did take upon her own body the afflictions of her baby.
Her precious one is instantly saved from his/her sufferings.
We will take a look at a second scenario that could also help us understand why our Lord Jesus suffered that we may be relieved:
A man has been justly sentenced to death for his vile crimes.
The date and time of his execution has been set.
At the appointed hour, the hangman put the noose around his neck.
Just at that point in time, his friend stepped forward and removes the noose from his neck and he puts it around his own neck.
He is hung to death in place of his friend.
The villain immediately passed from death to life.
In both instances of the mother and the friend, love moved them to extreme actions to save theirs.
The love for her baby drove the mother to be afflicted with her child’s sickness and disease so he/she was healed.
And the love for his friend compelled him to die in his stead.
Like our mother and our friend, our Lord Jesus bore the consequences of our sins with its attendant sicknesses in His own body because He loved us even as He said in John 15:13:
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
He suffered and died in our place because He loved us supremely.
Furthermore, when we see what it cost The Lord to save us from sins, our hearts would unconsciously gravitate towards Him, The Person, Who loved us so, and gave Himself for us.
We would love Him in return effortlessly.
He loved us that we may gladly and freely love Him in return.
(And if you can receive it, this two-way flow of love between The Lamb and His wife is life eternal.)
The Apostle of our Lord Jesus succinctly captured this mutual love affair rooted in the love of our Lord Jesus for us in 1John 4:19:
We love him, because he first loved us.
This love affair with The Lover of our Soul begins with a roaring inferno.
It is sizzling hot and passionate in its infancy.
However, in the process of time, our vision of what it cost Him to save us from our sins, from our sicknesses and diseases, begins to dim.
We begin to lose sight of His love for us.
Our memory of Him Who loved us starts to fade.
And gradually, but surely, we disconnect from Him, as our affections towards Him are no longer sustained by the consciousness of His love for us.
This potential disconnection from our Lord Jesus was prefigured for us in the church in the wilderness.
After Israel was delivered from the bondage of Pharaoh in Egypt, she rejoiced in The God of her salvation.
She sang high praises to Heaven.
Led by Mariam, the women sang and danced with timbrels in hand.
This euphoria was short-lived as is recorded for us in
Psalm 106:7–22:
(7) Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.
(8) Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.
(9) He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness.
(10) And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
(11) And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left.
(12) Then believed they his words; they sang his praise.
(13) They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel:
(14) But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.
(15) And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.
(16) They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the LORD.
(17) The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram.
(18) And a fire was kindled in their company; the flame burned up the wicked.
(19) They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image.
(20) Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.
(21) They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; (22) Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red sea.
The concluding segment of this passage revealed a tragedy of immense proportion: they forgot God their savior.
How could they forget God who delivered them with a mighty hand someone might ask?
How can the child forget his mother who suffered in his place?
How could that man ever forget his friend who was hung to death in his stead?
The opening verse of the passage we just read revealed how they forgot:
Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.
And verse 13 reads:
They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel:
They did not understand what it took for God to deliver them and forgot that their deliverance was motivated by the mercies of God.
Shortly they forgot what God did.
They forgot His love for them.
And sure enough, they forgot Him.
So how do we not lose consciousness of the love of our Lord Jesus for us?
How do we keep our love for The Lord burning in our hearts?
How do we not forget our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ?
Thankfully, He anticipated this potential weakness in us and He did not leave us to our mental faculties or to our own devices to keep the flame of His love for us burning in our hearts.
He made a provision for us as is written in:
Luk 22:19–20
(19) And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
(20) Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Under the old covenant, God instituted the Passover that Israel might perpetually keep in view His delivering them from Egypt motivated by His love.
During the last Passover, our Lord Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks, He broke the bread and gave to His disciples and told them to eat, and said to them this is my body.
He left us a memorial service to be done in remembrance of Him for an ordinance.
He commanded us to partake of His Table often.
And thus the Passover of the old covenant is fulfilled in His Table.
Before we proceed to how this memorial is interpreted for us in the scriptures, let us carefully note what our Lord Jesus did not prescribe it for.
Our Lord Jesus did not say as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we are healed in our bodies: we were healed by the stripes inflicted upon Him in taking our sicknesses and bearing our diseases in His own body on the tree.
He did not say as often as we do this, our physical health would be sustained: it is written that He in us is not only our life, but He, The Righteous One in us is also the health of our bodies by the power of The Spirit of life from God.
And He did not say that when we partake of His Table, we would be delivered from demonic oppression and afflictions: He said we were delivered from the power of Darkness and translated into His Kingdom when we were born again.
Commemorating their deliverance from Egypt by the ordinance of the Passover did absolutely nothing to deliver Israel from Pharaoh and to heal her from all the diseases The Lord brought upon Egypt.
When they came out, there was none under the power of Pharaoh — at least from without — and there was none feeble amongst them.
They were already delivered and healed: every one of them: just as we were.
The Passover was a perpetual reminder of the wonders God wrought in their deliverance because of His compassion for them.
So what then did our Lord Jesus say His Table is meant for?
We would read again His words as is written in:
Luk 22:19–20
(19) And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
(20) Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
We are to do this in remembrance of Him, The Person, The Lord Jesus.
He is the focus of this ordinance.
Why is He the primary focus?
The Lord is the center of attention so that, we, like the church in the wilderness, do not forget His love that ransomed us, and consequently forget Him, our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
So that we would not be like the proverbial woman enamored with the riches of her wealthy husband, rather than be ravished by, and captivated with his love for her, and she, consequently, reciprocating with her unadulterated love for him.
Now, what are we remembering Him for?
What is it about Him that He does not want us to forget?
His Apostle Paul not only reechoes the words of our Lord Jesus, but expounds on them as he wrote to us in 1Corinthians 11:23–26:
(23) For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
(24) And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
(25) After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
(26) For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.
The Apostle reiterates that the emblems of The Lord’s Table, the bread and the wine, are a representation of The Lord’s body given to death for us and of His Bloodshed to usher in the new and better testament.
And twice, he wrote that as often we partake of His memorial by eating the broken body and drinking the blood of our Lord Jesus, we recall Him, The Person, in His death rooted in His love for us.
In other words, His love for us is kept alive in us, and we, consequently, love Him in return.
And the Apostle further wrote that we not only recall His death but in remembering His love for us, the soon coming of our Bridegroom is kept in view.
So dearly beloved, let us partake of The Table of The Lord in its true spirit that we may love Him in return and so that yearning for His coming is the desire of our hearts.
And The Spirit and the bride say, Come.
