Introduction
Last time I took communion I spoke from Exodus chapter 12 about keeping your shoes on. I want to look at a further part of this chapter regarding the blood on the doorposts. Ex 12:6,7,22b,23 “Take care of them (the lambs) until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community must slaughter them at twilight. 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 …. Not one of you shall go out of his house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your house and strike you down.”
Now Jesus is our Passover lamb and when we are within the house we are safe. The sacrifice of Christ is an objective fact for every person in the world but it does not save unless a person puts themself within the house, that is, in Christ. For the blood to bring salvation there must be a participation in the cross.
Participation is a present reality
At the feast of Passover Jews recite, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt; And the Lord our God brought us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. And if the Holy One, blessed be He, had not brought our ancestors out of Egypt, then we (and our children and our grandchildren) would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.” For Jews the participation in Passover is still real three thousand years later. Our participation in the cross is the same – it is active and present.
What does participation in the cross entail?
Matt 10:38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me”. Jesus insists on our participation in the cross as a necessary part of discipleship. To be a disciple of Jesus involves a willingness to go to the cross just as he did because this is what following him means. Most certainly, following Jesus is not about agreeing to a set of intellectual propositions such as the Creeds. It involves death.
Phil 3:10 In order to know him and the power of his resurrection and the participation of his sufferings, being conformed to his death (my translation). This was Paul’s greatest desire and for this he gave up all that he had – pride, possessions, freedom, accomplishments and boasting. His desire was to be conformed to the death of Christ. But what does this mean?
Suffering and death come to every living person without fail. This is not the same as participation in the death of Christ. Matt 27:44 “Even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing”. These two were crucified with Jesus and yet they did not participate in the cross. At this point (later on one repents) they were not inside the house and not safely under the blood-covered door. So suffering alone is not a participation in the cross.
This answers what it is not, but to understand what it is we must ask, “What did the cross mean to Jesus?” Phil 2:8b “He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross”. Jesus was God Most High over the earth but he humbled himself to the point that he was willing to die a disgusting, shameful death out of the loving obedience he had towards his Father. This is what participation in the cross must mean for us; we must willingly give up all our own glory for the glory which comes from humble obedience to the Father.
Participation in the cross involves suffering. When Jesus was on the cross he experienced “the absence of the experience of God” (Not “the experience of the absence of God”) (That is, Jesus was not abandoned but he felt like he was) yet during this time he exercised blind trust in the Father. Participation in the cross is difficult because suffering can bring feelings of abandonment. Sometimes blind trust in the Father is needed. When everything is falling apart and there seems no way out then remember that we are participants in the cross through such difficulties. Our Heavenly Father is faithful even when life is inexplicable and without any sense of getting better. God is faithful when we cannot see the way out. Jesus saw no way out of the cross but death and hell but he trusted. Let us trust as we participate in the cross.
So participation in the cross involves humble and complete submission to the will of our Heavenly Father even when, and especially when, we cannot understand why this could be for our good. 1Cor 1:18 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”. Such blind obedience and trust in the Father will certainly seem like foolishness to those around us. The suffering Messiah was utter foolishness to the Jews. But when we are participants in the cross there is power.
To be a participant in the cross ‘I’ must die. Gal 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. This is an overt statement that we are participants in the cross. The participation involves the death of self. I am dead but Jesus lives in me. I do not live my own life but I live by faith in Christ. Such a faith seeks the will of the Father in everything.
This death of ‘I’ works itself out in godly living. Rom 6:1-14 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
“If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”
Gal 5:24 “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”. What happened on the cross was the death of all that Jesus may have desired for himself – on the cross he had no ministry, no plans for the future, no self-absorption, only submission to the perfect will of the Father. This is the goal of participation in the cross.
When we participate in the cross we must do so deliberately. It is possible to take life quite casually and to plod along with no direction. Jesus did not live his life aimlessly because his goal was always the cross. Luke 9:51 “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for him to be received up, that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem”. The cross was not an accident but a deliberate decision that Jesus made. From that time onward every step was a step towards Jerusalem and the cross.
The communion celebration
1Cor 10:16 “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?”
When we eat the bread and drink the wine we identify ourselves with Christ. When we participate in this communion meal we make a statement of our allegiance. We deliberately enter into the fellowship of the cross with its suffering and death. We deliberately put off our old self with its desires. We deliberately put aside our own wills and embrace the will of the Father. The cross had to come before the resurrection. Sin had to be done away with before life could be truly full. As we come together to participate in this bread and wine let us consciously submit ourselves to the will of our loving Heavenly Father, to obey him through whatever he calls us to.