Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Lord's Supper

The Deeper Magic

The Deeper Magic

The sooth-sayers have preyed upon our desire for rest and refreshment, but they do so without obeying creation law. Magicians in lab-coats conjure up pseudo-rest in the shape of pills and treatments. Entertainment wizards leave us spell-bound through the feeble-fables they put on our screens. The witches of tyranny cackle and intimidate us to subservience, under the enchanting message that this is all “for our health & safety.” The Necromancers have convinced our nation that killing the unborn will bring us self-fulfillment.

But God carved deeper magic into stone tablets as Moses looked on, revealing the secret to true rest: “Keep the Sabbath day holy.” Here, at this table, is the pinnacle of what it means to obey that commandment. The blessing of the Sabbath is not only creation law, it was also covenant law, and then, in Christ, redemptive law.

You have no rest apart from partaking of Christ. You cannot keep the Sabbath by neglecting to partake of Christ and doing so with His body. The common American practice of “I don’t need to go to church to be refreshed, my church is out in nature” is just eating the sorcerer’s poisoned apple.

The enchantments, spells, and dark sayings of our modern wizards will leave you more exhausted, more depleted, and more empty than before. The deeper magic of creation reveals that we are restless until we rest in God. Christ is the fullness of Him that is all in all. In Christ is abundant life. In this bread is true renewal. In this wine is true reprieve. In this company of saints is true renewal. In this Word is the deepest magic, the magic that tells you your sins are forgiven, death has been conquered, and God’s gift to you is everlasting life.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

OT as Telescope

OT as Telescope

The OT sacrificial law is a telescope which we must look through, not at. As we look through it, we can behold bright gleams of redeeming grace and how we should render worship to the Lord. This is displayed even in smaller details, like the requirement that the worshipper had to bring an animal which they’d either raised themselves, or which they’d purchased for a sum. The plain requirement was that the offering wasn’t something that could cost nothing. 

This explains, in part, why such animals as rabbits or deer weren’t appropriate for sacrifice. These creatures were plentiful & relatively easy to capture. However, there was no personal cost to the worshipper. At almost turn, the Israelite worshipper was led by the sacrificial code to see themselves covenantally joined to the sacrificial creature. They’d raised it, or toiled for the money to buy it, and now they laid it before the Lord.

The shed blood ought to have been their blood. The ascending smoke was their ascent to God. If they looked at the sacrifice in true faith, they saw themselves in the creature as it was slain then burned.

The Lord Jesus was called “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” He walked among us. He took on our flesh. He humbled Himself by taking to Himself a human nature. So, when we look at this bread & this wine, we too should be led to see our death, our burial, our resurrection, & our ascension. For by our union with Christ, His righteous life is counted as ours, His sacrificial death is ours, His resurrection is ours. He is the Lamb that was raised alongside of us, who laid down His life for us, & now has brought us along into the Father’s bright presence.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Bit by Bit

Bit by Bit

The Lord’s Supper changes you. In one sense, you won’t leave here the same person who walked in. This is true for both the elect who faithfully partake, and the reprobate who partake of this meal in high-handed hypocrisy. For the latter, as they partake once more in unbelief, the shell grows harder, the stony heart increases in numbness, they become more like who they are becoming. They crucify afresh the Lord of glory, and have added to their offenses another instance of their rebellious hatred for Christ’s gift of grace.

However, for those who partake by true, evangelical faith, you too depart changed. You too, become more like who you are becoming. For the redeemed, by partaking of Christ, you are also assured that you are becoming more like Christ. 

We know  we should we look at this bread and wine and see Christ in these rustic elements. However, we must also see by faith what Christ is accomplishing in us individually and corporately. Your battle with sin, your fears of the future, your trials which beset you all are overcome by Christ. So, since you are in Christ, and Christ is in you, you have abundant grace for it all. 

This change isn’t all at once. We don’t do an altar call, turn down the lights, rev up the music in the hopes of sending a tingle down your spine so that you have the emotional perception that you’ve changed. Rather, we partake of ordinary elements of bread & wine, with Christ’s blessing upon them, and so in faith we know that we are changed from glory to glory by looking on the face of Christ. By the Spirit’s power, the effectual blessing of Christ is in this meal. That blessing cannot help but make you, bit by bit, more like Christ.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Edible Words of Comfort

Edible Words of Comfort

The words of the Law are bitter words for the sinner. It confirms what their conscience already knows: they’re guilty. The words of the Accuser are sweet poison. They drip with the syrup of self-flattery, but once swallowed the paralysis of fear, shame, and self-pity sets in.

The Accuser heaps the words of the Law in front of sinners: guilty, transgressor, unholy, law-breaker. The Accuser will serve up a steady diet of these words, all of them true. Either you’ll be crippled by the immense shame of all your transgressions of God’s holy law, or you’ll be impossibly tangled in the pride of your self-righteousness. The legalist & the lawbreaker alike only know the bitter words of Sinai: cursed is the one who does not obey all the words of this law (Deu. 27:26). They hate this meal of Law, but it’s the only meal they know.

But laid on this table are edible words of Comfort. When the Father feeds us this meal, the first course is still the Law, but it isn’t the only course. The Father takes the Law, and by the Spirit convicts you of your guilt. He then convinces you of Christ’s righteousness. Then, as you partake of Christ, all the words of Guilt, all the words of Accusation, all the words of Shame melt into words of Comfort. I am a great Sinner, but Christ is a merciful Savior. He is mine, and I am His. 

Here on this table is free grace, and plenty for every last sinner who comes. You’ve tasted the bitter medicine of the convicting power of the Law, you’ve listened for too long to the Accuser’s half-Gospel. Hear now the full Gospel: though your sins are as scarlet, by Christ you are washed clean as February snow.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

A Weekly Habit

A Weekly Habit

Our practice of weekly observing of the Lord’s Supper might jostle loose a few reactions. In talking with many new families, reactions have ranged from deep gratitude for this practice (as they’ve come from churches where the Supper was only taken whenever there’s a fifth Sunday of the month). Others might react, however, with asking whether this weekly observance turns the Supper into a mindless tradition of men. I hasten to add this is a concern we share.

This concern, however, can arise from a common misconception not only about “right partaking” of the Supper, but also human wiring. First, weekly Supper observance is no more a “tradition of man” than a husband’s daily goodbye kiss to his wife before heading to work. Frequency doesn’t mean thoughtlessly or meaninglessly. Any man who’s had a long business trip knows the gnawing ache just to plant a kiss on his wife & bear hug his kids. The pain of his absence reveals the presence of his affections.

Another angle on this is that the broad Evangelical approach to the Supper is all about getting into the right frame of mind; perhaps this explains irregularity of the Supper in some circles. If you have to do evangelical Zen to get into the right pietistic headspace just to attain “right partaking,” you aren’t rightly partaking.

Just because something becomes habitual, doesn’t mean it’s drained of all enjoyment. Muscle memory enables the musician to come to deeper enjoyment of the music. Regularity doesn’t impede right partaking, it fosters it. We’re wired to form habits. The danger, then, in weekly observance of the Supper isn’t in frequency, it’s in the adverbs. Is the Supper taken faithfully, or unfaithfully?

A weekly Supper is intended to form the habit of faithfulness. Faithfulness isn’t discovered in the rare air of mountaintop pietism. It comes from Christ, and So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Up & In then Down & Out

Up & In then Down & Out

Throughout Scripture, people went “up” to Jerusalem and the temple. Moses was invited “up” Sinai. Under the Law, the Most Holy Place was off limits, only the High Priest was permitted to go “in.” The Lord commanded Israel to follow Joshua as he led them to “go in and possess the Land.” The Old Testament revealed that fallen mankind wasn’t allowed “up” or “in” without a mediator. Yet, in order to meet with God one must go up and in.

But Adam was driven out of Eden. Cain, too, was driven out from the presence of the Lord. The Korah rebels went down to Sheol alive. Downward and cast out was the lot of fallen man.

Christ’s coming upended everything. He went out from the Father, and came down to us. Now by Him we’re brought up and enter in. You aren’t left far off, you aren’t cast down to hell. You who are in Christ are assured of your welcome. Indeed, in Christ we ascend to this banqueting table without a shade of shyness.

Not only are we brought up and in, but now a river flows from the Holy of Holies outward and downward to bring healing waters to the lowest and furthest of places (Rev. 22:1). The Gospel brings us up and in, only to send us out and down.

We’ve been redeemed in order to be rendered fit for service in God’s kingdom. He saves us, then sends us. As ambassadors of Christ, we’re first raised up and welcomed in, then sent out to descend down to the lowest hovel with the declaration of these glad tidings: “The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (Act 2:39).” Come up. Come in. Then go out to the ends of the earth. In this meal we are encouraged and equipped to go out and down because we have first been brought up and in.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Our Temptations

Our Temptations

The modern church has trivialized corporate worship. Whether through the mega-church tendency of turning the service into a circus of pyrotechnics and entertainment lacquered in vaguely Christian sentiment; or in other orbits, the trivialization occurs through the ordination of lesbyterian bishopettes inviting their “congregation” into conversation about the lived experiences of oppression.

At present, those aren’t our temptations––and may God deliver our congregation from ever being enticed to head down those roads. But that raises the question: what temptations are we most likely to be enticed by? It is the temptation of assuming the blessing of God can be put on autopilot. Indifference, in other words.

A tidy table with a white tablecloth, bread & wine neatly arranged. Rows of families in their Sunday best. A liturgy which is structured after the order outlined in Scripture. All of those good things are just busy work if they’re devoid of true love for God Himself. The besetting sin of those who claim to endeavor to be faithful to God’s Word is to mouth the words while the heart wanders.

Make no mistake, God is still zealous for His house. God will still topple tables. God will still withdraw His glory from faithless worshippers. He who has commanded us to worship Him, will abhor that worship if it isn’t born of faith in Christ alone. Neither our liturgy, nor our Christian community, nor a beautiful sanctuary, nor a high view of sacraments, nor the expositional preaching of God’s Word can thrive without the new birth. 

So, if we would enjoy God’s blessing upon our congregation, upon this service, upon this sacrament, we must come through the Blessed One alone. If we come through Christ all those distinctives we cherish come too, and our worship ascends as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

A Table not a Cell

A Table not a Cell

When we partake of the Supper we should pay close attention to the obvious. Stick with me here, this is a table with a meal spread upon it. There’s a tendency in our evangelical piety to, in practice, completely overlook this glaringly obvious aspect of what we do.

Amongst our Evangelical ranks there are some who––in an effort to obey the call to “examine yourself” & to “worthily take the Supper”––have done some renovations to the furniture of this sacrament. They put the command to examine oneself into practice by acting as if the Lord’s Supper is like a crust of bread being slid under the cell door to a prisoner in solitary confinement. Instead of a table around which God’s elect children gather to commune with Him and each other, they turn this into an icy corridor of 6×6 cells of introspective piety.

The Lord summons us here to a joyful feast with more than plenty for all who He calls. He doesn’t send us to our rooms to think long & hard about how badly we’ve behaved and only get dinner if we are able to attain the properly morose disposition.  Our Father wants us to pull in our seats around this table, facing Him and each other, to enjoy the manifold ways He has brought us, saved us, sustained us, and nourished us.

With beaming faces we fellowship around this table, reflecting Christ’s light back to Him in praise and towards each other in faithful encouragement. Introspection, however, thinks that the proper thing to look at during the Lord’s Supper is the blank cement of the walls of our atrophied pietism.

In faith, we look at Christ as we look at this bread & wine. In faith, we look at each other and see Christ’s bride.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Ben Zornes