Friends: When Christians partake of the communion bread and cup, what are we nourishing? Have a great week! Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #948

January 14, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Food for Thought

By Bob Walters

“Where else would we go?” Peter, to Jesus, John 6:68

John 6 is a busy chapter in the Bible, full of stories we know well. 

Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6:1-13). then left, alone, for the mountains (v15). That night Jesus walked on the stormy water (v16) of the northern Sea of Galilee, out to the boat where his fearful and astounded disciples were saved from the weather, their fears, and as Jesus accused them, their lack of faith.

Jesus said to them, “It is I, do not fear” (John 6:20).

The next day many from the crowd of 5,000 went looking for Jesus. They caught up with Him near Capernaum on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee and asked when he had arrived. Jesus, ever alert to the self-indulging queries of humanity, provided a lesson rather than an answer: “You seek me not because of the miracle I performed, but because you ate and had your fill” (John 6:26). 

Jesus reproached them of following Him only for a free lunch – another feast of loaves and fishes – not because of their faith in Him. Faith is God’s coin of the realm.

Jesus goes on (John 6:27-59), telling them to seek bread that does not spoil, i.e. the bread of God – Him, Jesus – and that the work of God, their work, is “to believe in the one he has sent,” … meaning himself. Our “work” is to believe in Jesus.

Unlike the manna God sent to Moses and the Jews in the desert – bread that spoiled in a day – God sent Jesus to all mankind as the bread of eternal life that does not spoil. Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.” Adding, “He who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35, 54)

Jesus declares that his flesh is everlasting life, and that the Spirit will live only in believers who eat His body and drink His blood, and then they will live forever.

Eat Jesus? Drink His blood?  It was a “hard teaching” (6:60) and many “disciples” left.  The Twelve however, stayed. Peter expressed their faith perfectly: “Where else would we go?”

As we encounter the bread and cup of Christ today, we can express our love for God and each other, and ask the same question as Peter: “Where else would we go?”

I believe the Spirit of God, of Jesus, lives in believers.  And that by following the last supper commands of Jesus – to remember Him when we eat the bread and drink the cup as an act of devotion and faith in Jesus – we are participating in the life of God, and feeding the Spirit of God and Christ who lives within us.

Unlike the physically filling feast of loaves and fishes, communion is a very small meal. But just as Jesus says that faith only the size of a tiny mustard seed can grow large, this small meal of wafer and cup nourishes our faith and blossoms into our magnificent and eternal life with God, through our salvation in Christ.

The bread and the cup of communion feed our faith as we share the love of the Spirit who lives in us, and of the believers around us.  Where else would we go?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) presented this as a communion meditation Sunday.

Friends: Folks look at the Holy Trinity as something that needs to be split and defined rather than understood as a relationship and holy mystery.  Let’s hold it together. Have a great week, and all the best for 2025. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #947

January 7, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Splitting Image

By Bob Walters

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” – Hebrews 1:3

Pam and I are fortunate to have several savvy, sincere, and biblically literate Christian friends and teachers across the various cohorts of the life we lead together.

Feel free to drop an “Amen” if you can say the same thing.

Our New Year’s Eve gathering with some of our so-inclined church pals last week was a party, not vespers, but as invariably happens – amid family updates and chatting about life in general – a faith and scriptural issue popped up that sparked a lively post-dinner doctrinal conversation among a few of us still sitting at the table.

A lady we have known for years who is active in Bible studies, women’s ministry, and local missions lamented how many Bible studiers she encounters who refuse the aspect of the Trinity that names Jesus as God. Yes, I know … basic stuff.  And any of us who have been around “newer” Christians are well-acquainted with the question.

She noted, “They want to know, ‘If Jesus is God, where was God while Jesus was on the earth?’ What do you say?” I have a reputation in our Sunday school class of talking too much, so I took a shot at an answer because I can’t help it. To wit …

The Trinity as One – Father, Son, Spirit – is among my favorite teaching topics. The Trinity, of course, is a mystery of mathematics, physics, and personhood, how three beings can be one and one being can be three.  To me it is easily explained that if indeed “God is Love” (1 John 4:8), and if we can agree that “love” requires relationship, then it proceeds logically that God must be a relationship. Voila! God is one…and three.

And if indeed humans were and are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’”) – for all the ways that notion can be considered – it further proceeds that we are created in that love of God’s relationship.

Why three?  This is what works for me. Three is the smallest number of a community (George Bebawi), God himself is a society (G.K. Chesterton), and we, even as fallen sinners, are restored to God’s divine community through our faith in Jesus and acceptance of His gift of salvation. But the math? Yes, 1+1+1=3. But 1x1x1=1. I am content to “multiply” my blessings and figure God “adds up” love however He likes.

To me the issue we were discussing at the table comes down to those who stubbornly demand human definitions of holy things that need to be known in faith.  It is, to me, reasonable to take God at His word.  We can ask of Him all the questions we can conjure, but everything about Jesus is designed to demand our faith, not proof.

I’m afraid the best evidence for Jesus and God’s laws, even beyond scripture, is written on our hearts, ala Hebrews 8:10, Romans 2:15, Psalms 40:8, 2 Corinthians 3:3. And I couldn’t help but think of George’s observation that Western Christianity tends to focus on “Father and Son,” often ignoring the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

We can’t argue faith and the Holy Spirit into anybody. One can witness and lead by example, but the Spirit does the heavy lifting of changing hearts and minds to accept God’s truth and the reality of an eternal realm humans are not yet equipped to fully understand. We glimpse eternity, in faith, all the time … yet it is still outside of time.

So, mysteries abound, but our faith must cohere into oneness with God, oneness with other believers, and not split the divine relationship in which we were created.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) enjoys the mysteries God presents. Praise Jesus.