“Medicine, Marriage & Mission”
1. Medicine
1 Corinthians 11
26 Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are retelling the story, proclaiming our Lord’s death until he comes. 27 For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in the wrong spirit will be guilty of dishonoring the body and blood of the Lord. 28 So let each individual first evaluate his own attitude and only then eat the bread and drink the cup. 29 For continually eating and drinking with a wrong spirit[u] will bring judgment upon yourself by not recognizing the body.[v] 30 This insensitivity is why many of you are weak, chronically ill, and some even dying.[w]
We are SO incredibly blessed to live in an age where there is excellent healthcare and effective medicines available for overcoming various forms of sickness… We have much to be grateful and to thank God for with the extraordinary rise of modern medicines!
Marvellously, in addition to these excellent natural resources, God has provided for His disciples a form of supernatural medicine… in communion. Worshipfully eating the elements representing the body and blood of Jesus have miraculous power over every form of sickness – both the ones that modern medicine can heal, and the ones it can’t!
JESUS CAN. His blood is enough. The price for our healing was pain in full through His wounds at Calvary’s cross. Our job is to receive it by faith: with a right, believing and grateful spirit!!! And to treat this medicine with the measure of reverence and awe that it warrants!
Gratefully receiving Christ’s symbols of sacrifice acts as a supernatural medicine that shields us from attack, heals us from sickness, and secures us under God’s divine protection.
What area of healing are you believing for today? Both personally and for those around you?
Name an area where you need ‘the body and blood of Christ’ to provide healing in your life. Pray together with your group, then joyfully, gratefully, and with an attitude of faith and worship begin to eat your supernatural medicine!
2. Marriage
Matthew 26:26-30 (TPT)
26 As they ate, Jesus took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to his disciples. He said to them, “This is my body. Eat it.” 27 Then taking the cup of wine, he gave thanks to the Father, he entered into covenant with them, saying, “This is my blood. Each of you must drink it in fulfillment of the covenant. 28 For this is the blood that seals the new covenant. It will be poured out for many for the complete forgiveness of sins. 29 The next time we drink this, I will be with you and we will drink it together with a new understanding in the kingdom realm of my Father.” 30 Then they sang a psalm and left for the Mount of Olives.
I know at first, it might seem odd to connect marriage with the Last Supper… but consider for a moment the similarities.
Both marriage and the Last Supper involve…
- A formal statement and meaningful covenant ritual
- The ceremonial celebration of lifelong sacrificial love
- Celebration with food and singing
- Officially bind a ‘bride’ and a ‘bridegroom’ together
- Love-covenants that need to be renewed regularly
- Spiritual and sacred statements of commitment
- The exchange of vows and symbols
With all of these similarities in mind, we can clearly see the Lord’s desire to communicate His unrelenting covenant of love towards us through these symbols. Symbols that represented the one-sided price HE and HE ALONE was willing to pay in order to convey the depth of His love for us, as our ‘Bridegroom’, ‘Protector & Provider’ and ‘Strong Defender’.
Ephesians 3:17b-19
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
How does it make you feel to consider God’s extraordinary covenant of love towards you? What does it mean to you, to imagine Christ in the role of Bridegroom?
3. Mission
Exodus 12
3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household… slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs… 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.” 37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.
What extraordinary, evangelical, extravagant God we serve. Even here in this ancient, pre-cross Old Testament world of fallen humanity, our Father’s Heart was SO BIG that His redemption plan included not only His covenant people, but also “MANY OTHER PEOPLE”.
God is so generous that His Exodus was not only for the citizens of Israel… but also for ‘whosoever should come’ (John 3:37, Rev 22:17). “Many other people went up…” with the children of Israel to encounter this God who had just delivered them from Pharoah’s tyranny. God’s redemption plan was for people. Period. All people, fallen people, hungry people, humble people… many other people OUTSIDE of the specific lineage of Israel. Because that’s how BIG our God’s heart is, that’s how all-encompassing the blood of the lamb is, that’s how benevolent and open our Father’s table is for both us, and many other people too.
When you look at these communion elements and consider the Passover Lamb’s Blood that protected ANYBODY from the plague of death… and the blood of Jesus poured out for ANYBODY who would gratefully receive this gift –
Who does it make you think of that needs to hear about this good news?
Whose salvation do you want to pray for as a group around these communion elements that are invitationally available for “EVERYONE who calls upon the Lord [to] be saved (Rom 10:13).”