Then Jesus said something that must have frightened and shocked them: He said the bread was His body, which He was giving to them. Clearly they could see that the bread wasn't his physical body, but by this time, they were surely beginning to catch on that He was about to sacrificially yield up His life.
And Jesus made it personal, adding that he was giving His body to be broken, for them. (I'm somewhat amazed that Simon Peter didn't leap up and declare "No way," but presumably he was too stunned and troubled to do so.)
Jesus allowed His body to be seized, tortured, and put to death, not just for the disciples but for the whole world. He did this voluntarily, to satisfy divine justice and to vindicate His holy Name, but also to restore us to spiritual life and wholeness, and to a healed relationship with Him.
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Life-giving and crucial as the above message is, my post is not going to be a sermon about the theological significance of Jesus' death on the Cross. I have a more personal reason for relating this story.
I've mentioned that for many years I lived what I thought was the Christian life (or some form of it), without fully realizing what the Christian life was meant to be. I had begun to treat God a bit like an invisible favorite uncle. He was someone to chat with about my day (I did this a lot) or look to for counsel (although He didn't seem to give it most of the time). I also cried to Him when I was afraid, and complained to Him when I was angry.
Eventually, finally, I learned that the full Christian life was a fully yielded life. I learned that yielding to Christ's lordship was something I needed to do every day. Not to recommit my life to God every day, but to present myself to Him as a living sacrifice, letting Him know every day that I'm still with the program and that He continues to have full access to my life.
Yet there was one particular thing that I found excruciatingly hard to yield to Him fully. This "thing" was, as everything we cling to is, something closely linked to my deepest fears. To let go of it would be beyond terrifying. Clinging to it had been one way to keep going, psychologically, when my world was falling apart.
The Lord understood why I was clinging to this thing. He sometimes nudged gently about it, but He never pushed. People pushed: I got stern lectures from other Christians about it, after letting down my guard enough to reveal it. I've heard one pastor ridicule people several times about this issue.
But Jesus Himself never pushed, never lectured, and never ridiculed.
Instead, He took me to scripture, and showed me Abraham, on Mount Moriah with a knife in his hand, about to obey God's very troubling command: to sacrifice the thing most precious to him in the world -- his own son, Isaac. Through some very wise teaching I heard online, I learned the significance of this story: God wants to know that we are prepared to let Him alone be our sufficiency. That even if the thing that I'm most terrified of happens to me, He Himself will be the fulfillment of my deepest needs. That even if the center falls out of my world, He will be with me, sustain me, and protect me.
In the Abraham-Isaac story, God saw that Abraham had understood this principle, and Isaac was spared.
In my own story, God was much less melodramatic. He just finally one day showed me that I had become enslaved to this thing. I let go of it that same day.
I have a very changed perspective now. Even if what I was hoping to escape from by clinging to this thing haunts me forever, I will be fine. Because Christ Himself is my sufficiency.