Sacrificial Table

Sacrifice is essential to any true community. If everyone is only taking and drinking, and no one is being poured out like a drink offering, then eventually the wine which gladdens the heart of man will run dry. Put another way, Paul said that death was at work in him and life in the recipients of his ministry. No death in the apostle, no life in others. Put yet another way, if everyone only wants to be loved and no one sacrificially loves others, then there indeed will be no genuine love among that people. None given and none received.

Even those in the secular world are beginning to see the necessity of sacrifice for genuine community. And we should thank the Lord for that light which He has given to some. But, any attempt to sacrifice for others apart from this sacrificial table is doomed to failure. There is no life in a zero-sum sacrificial community. In about three days that approach will turn into a sacrificial redistribution program, with a democratically elected commission informing Jones that he has more life at work in him than Thompson so he must sacrificially pour himself out for the commission which will ensure that the benefit is granted to Thompson’s account. 

No, there is no true community apart from the communion of the body and blood of Christ. Here is the sacrifice that informs all sacrifices. And not only by way of example. At this table, you are not simply being reminded, as by an illustration, that you should pour yourselves out for one another. At this table, the chief sacrifice is poured out for you. Here you partake of the One in whom all things consist, in whom all things live. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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