Deborah P. Brunt

 

In the opening scene of C.S. Lewis' book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, three children sat in a British bedroom, staring at a picture of a ship - "a ship sailing nearly straight towards you." To their astonishment, the things in the picture began moving: "Down went the prow of the ship into the wave and up went a great shock of spray." Then, the children felt the sea breeze and smelled salt air. Before they knew it, a "great cold, salt splash had broken right out of the frame" and smacked them. Just when they thought they'd regained their balance, "a great blue roller surged up round them, swept them off their feet, and drew them down into the sea."

 

Everyone else who'd ever entered that room saw a picture on a bedroom wall. But those three children plunged through a portal into a different world.

Four times before, God had called Moses up Mt. Sinai to meet with him. Each time, Moses had returned with a message from the Lord for the people. God wanted to introduce the Israelites to themselves, to declare up front the new identity that relationship with him would produce in them. God wanted to introduce the Israelites to himself. He set the parameters for the encounter. Then he came - in a display of shock-and-awe that no one there would ever forget.

From the very first rendezvous with Moses, God brought up the subject of covenant. He let the people know that everything - their identity, purpose, relationships, blessings - all hinged on their keeping his covenant. Between visits with Moses, the Lord himself announced to all the people the bullet points of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. During rendezvous #4, the Lord gave Moses a seemingly random collection of laws. The Lord, however, did not consider the laws random. They fleshed out the bullet points. He called those laws collectively, "the Book of the Covenant" (Ex. 24:7).

Returning down Mt. Sinai after that fourth rendezvous, Moses told the people - orally and in writing - what God had said. After Moses spoke the laws, repeating all the words God had told him, the people "responded with one voice, 'Everything the Lord has said we will do'" (Ex. 24:3).

After Moses wrote the laws and then read them all again to the people, "They responded, 'We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey'" (Ex. 24:7).

So they twice repeated a chorus they had first sung the first time Moses had come down to them after meeting with the Lord on Sinai. That first rendezvous, God had sent them this message through Moses: "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

In answer, "The people all responded together, 'We will do everything the Lord has said'" (Ex. 19:4-6,8).

God is no fool. He knew exactly how few days would pass before the Israelites broke the promise they had made fervently three times. Yet he still pursued his intent to enter covenant relationship with them.

After Moses spoke all the words of the law and the people promised to obey, "He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar" (Ex. 24:4-7).

After Moses read all the words of the law and the people promised to obey, "Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, 'This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words'" (Ex. 24:8).

You can make a promise, you can take an oath, you can sign a contract, you can swear on a stack of Bibles - but you can make no agreement more binding than a covenant. If a covenant is the most binding of commitments, a blood covenant is the most binding of covenants.

In 1885, Henry Clay Trumbull published a ground-breaking book titled, Blood Covenant: A Primitive Rite and Its Bearing on Scripture. Trumbull asserted that the scholars and Bible students of his day had completely overlooked the significance of blood covenant.

He described "the rite of blood-covenanting" as "a form of mutual covenanting, by which two persons enter into the closest, the most enduring, and the most sacred of compacts." He said, "As it is the inter-commingling of very lives, nothing can transcend it. It forms a tie, or a union, which cannot be dissolved. In marriage, divorce is a possibility: not so in the covenant of blood."

Trumbull further explained, "The heart of any living organism, as the blood-source and the blood-fountain, has been recognized as the representative of its owner's highest personality, and as the diffuser of the issues of his life and nature.

"A covenant of blood, a covenant made by the inter-commingling of blood, has been recognized as the closest, the holiest, and the most indissoluble, compact conceivable. Such a covenant clearly involves an absolute surrender of one's separate self, and an irrevocable merging of one's individual nature into the dual, or the multiplied, personality included in the compact. Man's highest and noblest outreachings of soul have, therefore, been for such a union with the divine nature as is typified in this human covenant of blood."

So the Lord God made a covenant of blood with the Israelites. Then he invited 74 Israelite leaders to come up and eat before him a covenant meal. The 74 saw God. They prostrated themselves before him. Most intriguing of all, they ate and drank in his presence.

What an experience! What a moment to remember for the rest of your life! Oh that we could have such an experience! Oh that we had been there on the mountain that day!

But, if those 74 men could talk to us today, do you know what they'd say? They'd tell us, "You have the opportunity to experience God in a far more profound way than we did."

The Israelites had a covenant sealed with the blood of animals. Of all the million-plus people who entered that covenant, only 74 men got to make the trek up to meet with God. Of the 74, 73 had one semi-encounter with the Lord halfway up the mountain. They saw the Lord at a distance, but they could not approach him. They ate in his presence. But as far as we know, they didn't talk with him, or he with them.

They had a genuine encounter with God. We can read about it, maybe feel a little envy over it, and go on. But I pray not. "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened" (Eph. 1:18). I pray that God himself will bring the picture to life before your eyes and that he will sweep you off your feet and into it.

Jesus and his disciples reclined at table in an upper room, eating the Passover meal. "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body.' Then he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins'" (Matt. 26:26-29).

Earlier, Jesus had told these same twelve, "Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it" (Matt. 13:17).

The disciples didn't understand any of it until after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

But they and we have a covenant sealed with the blood of the Lamb. Of all the millions down through time who have entered that covenant, every one - male and female - has an invitation from God himself to know him personally, intimately. With the eyes of our heart, we can see him. We can approach him. Any time, anywhere - though always only on his terms.

He has invited us into his Presence to partake of a covenant meal. Not once, but again and again until he returns, he calls us to eat and drink in his presence. Most believers have participated in the Lord's Supper, or Communion. But in the partaking of the bread and the cup, few of us have experienced the Presence and the resulting dynamic impact on our spirit, soul and body that God himself has designed his meal to accomplish. Most of us haven't even known that anything beyond what we've experienced exists.

But for a few - then more, and more - of God's people today, the picture is coming alive.

Trumbull wrote, "The inter-commingling of blood by its inter-transference has been understood as equivalent to an inter-commingling of natures."

Jesus himself said in John 6: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them."

And Paul affirmed, "But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him" (1 Cor. 6:17 NRSV).

Repeatedly in John 6 Jesus referred to himself as "the bread": "the bread of God," "the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world," "the bread of life" (see vv. 33,35, etc.)

When he said, "This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world," the Jews became highly offended. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" they cried (John 6:51,52).

Unperturbed, Jesus kept pressing in: "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me" (John 6:51,53-57).

If you don't understand all that - if, in fact, it bothers you - you're in good company. Jesus' words are mystery. On hearing that mystery, "many of [Jesus'] disciples said, 'This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?'" and they "turned back and no longer followed him" (John 6:60, 66).

Like the Jews of Jesus' day, we're incredibly uncomfortable with mystery. It contradicts logic, defies explanation and creates offense. When Jesus called for people to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he spoke of the mystery of believing in him. But he also spoke of the mystery of the meal he would initiate:

"Take and eat; this is my body ... Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant" (Matt. 26:26-28).

"Take it; this is my body ... This is my blood of the covenant" (Mark 14:22,24).

"This is my body given for you ... This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you" (Luke 22:19-20).

"This is my body, which is for you ... This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (1 Cor. 11:24-25).

"For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink" (John 6:55).

In 1 Corinthians 10:16, Paul asked, "When we bless the cup of blessing aren't we sharing in the blood of Christ? When we break the bread aren't we sharing in the body of Christ?" (GOD'S WORD)

The Message renders the same questions this way: "When we drink the cup of blessing, aren't we taking into ourselves the blood, the very life, of Christ? And isn't it the same with the loaf of bread we break and eat? Don't we take into ourselves the body, the very life, of Christ?"

In 1215, more than one thousand years after Jesus walked the earth, the Roman Catholic Church officially adopted the doctrine of transubstantiation, the teaching that in Communion the elements of the bread and wine literally, physically change into the body and blood of Christ. Three hundred years later, when the Reformation swept Europe, the Protestant leaders with one voice rejected that teaching.

But in the swing away from that unscriptural doctrine, we beached ourselves. We began treating the bread and the cup as a picture to admire, rather than experiencing the life-giving, covenant-deepening, mystery of sharing in the body and blood of our Lord.

And so, periodically, we sip the juice or wine, swallow the bite of cracker or bread, respectfully remember the cross, and go our way unchanged. We miss the rendezvous with God to which he has invited us. We bypass the deeper experience of the inter-commingling of natures that the covenant in his blood offers us.

Here's the picture:

"Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, 'This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.' Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky ... they saw God, and they ate and drank" (Ex. 24:8-11).

Now look again. See the indissoluble covenant of blood, the covenant meal in the presence of God, the foreshadowing of another better covenant and an even more profound covenant meal in which we not only eat before the Lord, we share in the body and blood of Christ. See it all with the eyes of your heart - and cry for the Lord Jesus to sweep you through this portal into a lifetime of profound Communion with him.

. . . . . . .

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures references are from The Holy Bible, Today's New International Version™ TNIV ® Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society ® All rights reserved worldwide. Also quoted: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). GOD'S WORD Copyright © 1995 by God's Word to the Nations Bible Society. All rights reserved. THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" (New York: Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company), © 1952, pp. 3-4,6,7,8.

Henry Clay Trumbull, Blood Covenant: A Primitive Rite and Its Bearing on Scripture (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885), pp. 4, 6, 204, 202. Accessed on Google books 10/11/2010.

"they saw God" (Ex. 24:11)

Laying Down the Law

Seven encounters with God
September 2010 - April 2011
Olive Branch, MS (outskirts of Memphis)

 

NOTICE: Each time frame is different for these last three!

 

FRI 7 pm - 9:30 pm; SAT 9:30 - 4:00

One Bridegroom, One Bride

APRIL 14-16

THU 7 pm through SAT noon

Spiritual Roots, Lasting Fruit

On the 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, we'll summon humility and courage. We'll explore how covenant with the Confederacy still hinders revival in the conservative American church culture. As we give God permission to expose and uproot ungodly roots, our true roots will flourish, and we'll bear much fruit.