June 9, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“So says the Lord: ‘This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word. But they did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.‘” (Isaiah 66.2b, 4b)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

What is presented above is more like the wafers of an Oreo cookie without the creme filling. I want you to think about that image, if you will. When given an Oreo cookie to eat, what do most people do? That’s right, they twist the cookie wafers and try to leave the creme filling only on one side. They then eat the creme filling before eating the wafers. Some, of course, may dip the entire cookie into a glass of milk and eat the whole thing. For the moment, I believe that is a way we can read for understanding the verses presented above. What is left out is the creme filling (verses .3-4a) . There are not left out because they are unimportant. They are excluded only because without understanding the borders, or wafers, which surround the filling, the filling may lose its meaning. In the call to righteousness, which is a theme throughout Isaiah, it is the internal of the believer which is most critical. The outward appearance is not to be a substitute for what is at “the heart of the matter.” What is at the heart of what is the matter with Israel is the embracing of the spirit of God and the spirit of the Law. Or should we say, their lack of embracing them. They are caught up with the externals of God’s religious practices believing that going through the motions is enough. They do so without putting their heart into it. The Apostle Paul addressed a similar situation and thinking when it came to the practice of the Lord’s Supper in the Corinthian church. It may have started out for them that they were keeping the practice sacred and set aside. It did not end up that way and Paul addressed that fellowship sternly. We read it in 1 Corinthians 11.17-34. Paul will say that when they did not share in the Lord’s Supper in the manner, or in the heart of the matter, as it was given then they were bringing judgment upon themselves. They were forgetting the true meaning and purpose of the Lord’s Supper celebration and the “breaking of bread.” Even today in many churches, there still is no clarity when sharing the “words of institution” and bringing the faith community together in one mind, one body, one heart and one spirit. The “breaking of bread” was a sign of shared fellowship with all who gathered there, believers, non-believers and unbelievers. It is a sign of welcome into the house in which they were to all be in one accord. Too often the words are spoken so that what is heard is Jesus declaring the breaking of bread as a sign of His broken body. We know from prophecy and from biblical account that “no bone was broken.” His flesh was torn to shreds but His body “was not broken.” What was broken was his heart. His heart broke for the people of God who bore the weight of a misunderstood “religion” which God had called them to practice. We sing a contemporary Christian song which says “Your kingdom is backwards.” I am not sure that the Kingdom of God is backwards except in respect to what the world says is “forward thinking.” The Kingdom of God follows the itinerary and will of God for all creation, including humankind. It is humankind which seems to contradict the will and way of God. It is the misrepresentation of righteousness which causes backward thinking and backsliding. The Church must be very careful to represent the Word before and in the world. Certainly, Jesus is offered to those in our presence like we are breaking bread. But, we are not breaking Jesus’ body. Paul was clear this is what was happening in the Corinthian community of faith. Sectarianism was rampant and the gospel message was being polluted by false representation in remembering when Jesus gathered with His disciples that last Seder feast. Paul is clear that as Jesus “broke bread,” having table fellowship, “He said take and eat, this is My body which is given to you.” He was referring, of course, to His teaching as recorded in John 6 where He taught, “I am the bread of life. The one who eats of this bread shall never hunger (spiritually) and the one who believes in Me shall never thirst (spiritually.)” He obviously wasn’t speaking of His body as literal matzah or a loaf of bread. He was speaking to the “creme filling” that existed within the confines of the flesh. He, is and will always be “spirit and truth.” It makes great sense to understand the fellowship of communion in this way. Jesus was always getting to the “heart of the matter.”

We can go further and understand the cup of the New Covenant with the same intentionality. Jesus did not mean that the cup was filled with His blood. He knew the fruit of the vine, the juice of the grape, was the lifeblood of those who thirst. The application of that image spoke to those who “hungered and thirsted for righteousness.” (Matthew 5.6) The desire for deep moral and spiritual integrity extended far beyond the confines of the Pharisaical law which even the Sadducees had a difficult time embracing. They promoted their own sense of the Law believing it was the lifeblood of Israel. Yet, the structure of “following the Law” still advanced a more external image of righteousness and holiness than an internalization of “the spirit and truth” which Jesus said was at the very heart of the Law. We see the conflict in the discussion concerning “which is the greatest commandment” question. Jesus asked His questioners for their answer and then gave His own. The great commandment was “to love God and to love the neighbor.” His questioners, and detractors, could not argue with the premise of the Shema. It was the foundation of the Ten Commandments. It was a sanctified truth because it set aside the believers to focus on the right relationship which God commanded by His very nature and will. What is that nature and will? It is love and “God is love.” (I John 4.7-12) So, when the cup of the promise was lifted up that night before the disciples and those serving at table it was the true promise of God’s love being poured out. That love poured out was the very blood of Jesus from the secret halls of the Temple as the leaders took Him to task and then on to Pilate’s court where He was whipped to near death with thirty-nine lashes of the “cat-o-nine tails.” It would be the “blood of the Lamb” which would take away the sins of humanity. It would have to be humanity who would accept the sacrifice as sufficient for their own forgiveness. Without it, they would not be spared the eternal death of hell. As we take time to read of the atrocities which God mentions between verses 66.2b and 4b, we can see how God addresses the false spirit of those who give the image of holiness and righteousness and faithfulness on the outside but inside are full of venom and bitter angst, selfishness and hatred to any who would deny them their right and privilege. It flowed through their veins and poisoned their heart, mind, body and soul. God hated it. He hated hating it. He wanted for the people to hate it so much they would forsake what they had wrongfully assumed was right and confess it was wrong. In its place, He desired they would profess the truth of what God saw and knew was vital to authentic living, reconciliation, restoration and renewal. It had to come from the inside out!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free in Jesus’ name. AMEN.