Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church     
 
Pastor Tim Janiszewski - "Devoted to the Breaking of Bread"

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Messages of Grace

(Past Recorded Sermons) 










Preaching:
Dr. Bruce Bickel
 



This Sunday:
Sept. 20, 2015
Sermon Title:
"Intimate Fellowship: The Breaking of Bread" 




Scripture:
Acts 2:42-47
(Confession of God's New Community)  
Mark 14:22-23 
 
Picture of Pastor Tim
September 17, 2015
 
Dear MLEPC Members and Friends:
 
This Sunday, Dr. Bruce Bickel will preach God's Word during both our Contact and Heritage services. We continue to be grateful to Bruce for serving MLEPC as our Teacher in Residence. If you would like further opportunity to benefit from his ministry, Bruce is teaching our Lamplighter's Sunday school class during September. You are invited to come and grow your life in Christ through his ministry of preaching and teaching God's Word. And please pray for Dr. Bickel as he prepares.
 
If people outside the church hear the phrase "devoted to the breaking of bread," what might come to their minds? We now live in a culture that focuses a profound amount of time and money on food. Just turn on the TV and you can find entire channels devoted to recipes, food preparation, cooking methods, cookware, food presentation, and so forth. People with deep fascination in the culinary arts are often simply called "foodies" these days. Perhaps when foodies hear of being devoted to the breaking of bread, they immediately think in terms of their passion for preparing and enjoying fine food.
 
As much as we can enjoy a good meal, Christians have something rather different in mind when referring to devotion to the breaking of bread. Breaking of bread is meant in symbolic and referential ways. The bread stands for Jesus Christ who said, "I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to me will never go hungry. He who believes in me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35-36). To be devoted to the bread means that we are devoted to Jesus Christ as the One in whom is life and through whom we receive life in God.
 
What about the act of breaking? To what does it refer? This points us to the suffering and death of Christ for us on the cross. It does not mean a literal breaking of Jesus, because we know that not a bone in His body was broken in order to fulfill Old Testament prophecy (John 19:36, cf. Psalm 34:20). Rather, it addresses how Jesus endured humiliation, pain, and death as He cried out to the Father, "My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, cf. Psalm 22:1). Jesus, our Bread of Life, was broken in giving His life for our lives when facing the crucifixion in our place.
 
So when God's first New Community gathered together in      A. D. 30, its members were devoted to Jesus Christ who gave Himself for them so that they could experience new life, a new relationship with God, a new identity as God's children, and a new purpose of living both presently and forevermore. And Jesus gave them--and us--a sacrament by which to remember this central reality to our life together. We call it by various names: the Lord's Supper, Communion, or the Eucharist. It is a tangible expression of this spiritual and experiential reality that all Christians share together. We therefore find that being devoted to the breaking of bread is far greater than only the occasions on which we observe the Lord's Supper; however, receiving the Lord's Supper is a powerful and precious expression of the greater reality that binds us to God and to each other. We typically celebrate Communion on second Sunday nights at 7 p.m. and on fourth Sunday mornings at our Contact and Heritage services. Please join us.
 
Perhaps we could say that all followers of Jesus are to be Christian foodies. We are passionate about Jesus as our Bread of Life, who was broken on the cross so that we live forevermore. We express, experience, and give thanks for the Bread of Heaven every time we share the sacrament.
 
Pastor Tim

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