Meditations

No “Nothing Buttery” about the Lord’s Supper

June 15, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The many attempts to provide a visual aid for the Trinity devolve, sooner or later, into visual aids for heresies instead. No, the Triune God is not like an egg, or a shamrock, or states of water. When we come to this table, we’re tempted to make almost the inverse mistake: that of thinking that the bread and wine are only visual aids. Where visual aids for the Trinity demean transcendent truths––tarnishing them with unhelpful symbols––the danger here is thinking that the bread and wine are nothing but a visual aid.

If it were just a visual aid, there would be no issue with a rotation of different ones each week. A Shepherd. A Door. A Light. A Refiners Fire. A Vine. But this meal is far beyond just a useful illustration.

These elements are not only visual signs, they’re also performative signs. They seal what they signify. They confer what they display. This bread & wine do what Jesus says they do. Christ commanded us to memorialize Him, until He comes again, by partaking of His body & blood. In this meal we really do partake. While our minds, of course, are reminded of Christ broken and bleeding on the cross, more is happening here than just a mnemonic device. This meal, when taken in faith, is our partaking in that death, our enjoyment of the blessings it gives, and our reception of the fellowship it bestows.

This is true food for our faith, because Jesus is fed to us here. This is true fellowship because Christ unites us with the Father and with each other. This is the medicine for the sickness we’re stricken with. This is Living Water to quench our thirst. Because this is Christ, given for you.

So come in faith, and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Wash Away Our Sin

June 15, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Baptism is a cleansing. This water doesn’t wash away dirt, it washes away sin. Not because we whisper a secret spell over the water to make it magical. Rather, because this water is authorized and sanctified by Christ to perform such a weighty task of cleansing us from sin.

This child, no matter how cute, has the seed of sin in him. Opportunities will soon arise for him to act on those sinful desires. What we do here is apply a sign, which Jesus gave us, that promises that every sin he’ll ever commit is washed away. Not because God turns a blind eye. But when a child of God walks with God they look in faith to Christ to wash away all their sins, as He promised He would do. The waters of our baptism promise each of us, that God, through Christ, washes away our sin.

So welcome our brother to Jesus Christ…

Generous Fathers

June 14, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

God filled this world with uncountable multitudes of molecules and gave them to us in a multitude of ways. God assembles the molecules into flaming spheres of heat and light, summer berries, cool streams, and all manner of other God-sent blessings.

Sinful man, as he runs from God, insists that he deserves all the things. When he’s deprived of any of his wishes he throws a fit––which he cleverly calls a protest. The nanny-state steps in to ape generosity, but this is just disguised theft. In our reformational efforts, we aim to build a culture which obeys & imitates God. One of the places we must begin is in imitation of our Heavenly Father’s generosity.

This means that fathers, in particular, are tasked with being models of God’s generosity; not only the generosity itself, but also the order of His generosity. Jehovah blessed Abraham in order to bless the nations (Gen. 18:18). Otherwise generous men often get the sequence backwards. He writes large checks to charities, gives Benjamins to panhandlers, helps friends out of financial jams; but he’s the stingiest of Scrooges towards his family. He’ll lecture his family when they make requests of him to meet some pressing need or reasonable desire, while convincing himself he’s just being a good steward of the resources God gave him.

Of course, this isn’t a call to live outside your means, or to indulge sinful whims. Nevertheless, fathers, you’re called to make the economy of your home famous for joyful generosity. Your wife & kids should find you to be a fountain of wise bounty. Fathers, send a steady stream of joyful generosity cascading down upon the heads of your wife, your children, and your children’s children. In so doing, you exemplify God’s free grace to your children, leaving them no appetite for Uncle Sam’s gravy train

The Base of the Hill

June 7, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

In Deuteronomy 5, Moses recounts the giving of the Ten Commandments. God had summoned Israel up to Mt. Sinai to meet with Him to hear the whole law by His own voice. When He descended with thunder and fire, holy terror gripped the people. They begged Moses to go meet with God as their mediator. They’d been invited––as a kingdom of priests––to the foot of Sinai, but the glory of God struck such awe in them that they dared proceed no further up the mount. They saw that their brightest works of holiness were but opaque shadows.

The people weren’t chastised by the Lord, but rather commended. The lesson was learned: they needed a mediator. So Moses met with the Lord face to face on behalf of all Israel.

Yet still, the Lord revealed in this episode His desire to commune with all His people. All of this was preparatory for the ascent of God’s people up another hill.

The hill of Zion, which we ascend each Lord’s day, isn’t less in glory, it is more glorious in every way. While we still need a mediator, the difference is that the Mediator of the New Covenant brings us in Himself. We come because Jesus brings us with Him. For we are in Him.

At this table we commune with God face to face, atop the Holy Hill of Heavenly Jerusalem. Not one of us is holy enough to ascend by our own merit. Nor is a single one of us too far gone so as to be left at the base of the hill. If you are in Christ then He brings you––every last one of you, from the least to the greatest––to commune with God Almighty here at this table, here in this bread and wine.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus…

Uncleanness of Death

June 1, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

In Moses’ law, if you touched a corpse you had to undergo ritual cleansing by water. Death, though inevitable, was counted as unclean. Death was the result of sin, of course. But still, death made you unclean. So, you needed to be washed.

God’s people weren’t to remain in their uncleanness, they were sanctified to Him to be a clean people, a people set apart for life. In obedience, they washed away the uncleanness which came by touching a corpse. All this shadowed forth what we do here. Though born into a world where death is inevitable, we confess with these baptismal waters that this child is set apart unto life.

The twist, however, is that that life is found by union with Christ and His the death. This sign unites us with Christ’s death, but it cleanses us from the death with which this fallen world has defiled us. So, in this glorious mystery, our life is bound up in the death of the Jesus.

So welcome covenant child to Jesus Christ…

What the Water Says

May 24, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

You’ll notice that we accommodate the various convictions regarding the mode of baptism––the large tub of water might have tipped you off. But what we want to affirm, regardless of mode of baptism, is the meaning of baptism.

Whether someone is baptized in infancy, youth, or old age, we’re saying the same thing: Christ saves us. This water speaks. This water promises. It says, “You’re not your own, you are bought with the precious blood of Jesus (1 Cor. 6:19-20).” It promises, “if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection (Rom. 6:5).”

The faith professed here is simply saying what the water says. These waters proclaim that faith is God’s gift to those who are in Him, because these waters are a sign of our union with Jesus.

So welcome our brother to Jesus Christ…

Robot Pizza & Forgiveness

May 11, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

One thing we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, is that God would forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us. The Westminster Shorter Catechism draws out an important aspect of what we should mean when making this petition: “We pray, that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins; which we are the rather encouraged to ask, because by his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.”

The encouragement for boldly asking God to forgive our sins, arises from His grace within us enabling us to forgive others. You know that the God who forgives is at work within you when you are eager to forgive those who trespass against you, and thus have a clear conscience in asking God to forgive your trespasses.

But there’s a striking phrase in there that deserves our attention, we’re to forgive others from the heart. Forgiveness isn’t like a vending machine: money in, thingamajig out. Once, some MIT students built a restaurant run by robotics. No waiters or cooks needed, just swipe your card & 10 minutes later, out comes your robot-made pizza. That’s like forgiveness that isn’t from the heart. The meal might arrive hot & ready to eat, but the heart is missing.

True forgiveness is like the homemaker who pours her love into hand-kneading dough, slicing ingredients, and patiently watching it bake. The meal will arrive just like the robot pizza, but the difference is that along with the meal, sincere love for the eaters comes along compliments of the chef.

This meal is God’s token that you’re forgiven, and He means it. It isn’t mere formality or ritual. Nor are there clouds of suspicion hanging over you. He’s made a meal for us, and delights to commune with us. Through Christ, we taste true forgiveness, so that we might share that recipe even with our worst enemies.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus…

The Purpose of Pain

May 10, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

A room full of people is a room full of pain. If we each filed past the microphone, describing the various pains we carry, we’d be here for a few days. Grief over lost loved ones, hard circumstances due to either your sin or another’s sin against you, chronic illness, endless financial strain, multiple miscarriages, family estrangement, hurtful words of parents, fears about current events, battle fatigue from fighting temptations. Were we each to share, it’d be a train of pain, after sorrow, after heartache, after trial, after infirmity.

The response to this pain, by our society, is to medicate it. Pains and sorrows are to be treated therapeutically. If that fails, the dark alleyways of porn, drugs, or debauchery entice.

All this pain is the result of sin, but it isn’t the result of God’s absent-mindedness. Your pain, whether the result of your sin or others’ sins against you, is God’s kindness to you. Do you bear the consequence of your sin? This pain is like the smart of the discipline rod. Through that sting, God adjures you to mortify the sin that brought about that chastisement.

But other pains are harder to explain. Why did God allow that to happen? Why did God allow them to do thus and such to me? Where was He? The answer isn’t to try to get God off the hook. You were hurt by some tragedy, and either there is a point to it, and God alone knows the purpose for it, or else it is pointless. One approach to explaining pain renders it all pointless, and there’s no comfort there. The Bible’s explanation comforts us with the knowledge that all our pain has a point. Through pain, God awakens sinners to their plight. Through pain, God draws us to cling to Him alone. So, don’t numb the pain through sinful vice. Let God put His salve of sovereign purpose on all your wounds, and so be brought to praise Him for His tendnermercies.

We naturally shy away from pain. We opt for numbing it through narcotics, TV, Facebook scrolling, obsessive gym work-outs, overeating, under-eating, gender reassignment surgeries, abortions, godless therapy, or slothful slumber. But we must learn to not look away from the truth. God is the Author of our pain. He ordains the dark clouds of our various trials. He ordains the chastisement we face for our sin. He ordains the trials we each face. The pain isn’t because He’s asleep at the wheel. Rather, pain is His means of awakening us to how things are not as they ought to be, and only by Him, only by His Son, only by the Holy Spirit is this world being restored. He drove our parents out of Eden, and ever since, His flaming sword has directed us to Mt. Zion, the City of our God, whose foundations cannot be shaken. We must stop fleeing the lessons hidden in our pain by seeking out all manner of pain-killers. May God grant eyes to see through the pain, and see His smiling face of kindness to us through Christ.