The Blood of our Communion

THE BLOOD OF OUR COMMUNION

Exodus 12:3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. 
Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. It is the LORD'S Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

That miraculous event was celebrated by Israel every year during their Feast of Passover to acknowledge that life was given to God’s people through the blood of the Passover Lamb while death came upon the families of Egypt. There were many such rituals that God commanded Moses to have Israel perform to the most precise detail after they escaped from Egypt and journeyed through the wilderness towards the Promised land. Every year would begin with the ritual of the Feast of Passover which was followed fifty days later by the Feast of Pentecost and followed later in the seventh month of the year by the Feast of Tabernacles.
For fifteen hundred years the sacrificial blood of animals was spilled on the ground day after day by the priests of Israel for the forgiveness of their sins. God told Moses to say to the people ‘I have given you the blood to sprinkle upon the altar as an atonement for your souls; it is the blood that makes atonement because it is the life’ (Leviticus 17:11). Blood speaks of life as well as forgiveness.

But since the time of Jesus there is no more spilling of blood every year on the ritual Feast of Passover for the sins of Israel. The Bible says that John saw Jesus coming to him, and he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), The blood of Jesus as our Passover Lamb spilled on the dusty ground of Calvary was the last drop of lifeblood to be spilled, and that blood is for the sin of all Mankind, (The whole earth) and it brings the life of God to all humanity. His blood is the blood of our Communion, the union of his life with our life.
And since the time of Jesus, we no longer live by rituals. The Bible says these were just symbolic of the inner reality of Christ and his life working within us 
Colossians 2:17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the reality is of Christ. 

The only way that the blood of Jesus can be applied to us today is to our hearts in the inner work of the healing and salvation of our souls so that we can live in partnership with Jesus, sharing in his life of faith and love wherever we may be, as the Scripture says. ‘But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ’ (Eph. 2:13).
And just as Israel lived with the day-to-day reality of the blood of sacrifice so can we also live with a day-to-day consciousness of having the life of Christ working within us. That is what it means for us to be ‘saved’, thanking him for the blood applied to our lives

The blood of Jesus cannot be applied by us upon any external thing as it is solely for the inner redemptive work upon the soul of mankind, even though some Christians oddly enough still practice ‘applying the blood’ or ‘pleading the blood’ upon their houses or their cars for protection and safety. Israel only ever once sprinkled the blood of the Lamb upon the doorpost of their houses in Egypt. Our faith in Jesus’ blood has nothing to do with houses, and ‘pleading the blood’ does not exist in Scripture. That belongs to the same area of superstition in the way that some other Christians believe in having a St. Christopher medal hanging in the front windscreen of the car to protect them while driving. These are no better than a rabbit’s foot, and I can’t find that in the Bible either.

Under the Old covenant every spiritual act that the people did was performed as a formal ritual. This is not the way we live Christianity. 
Jesus told the disciples to baptise people, he also told them to share Communion in eating of the bread and in drinking of the cup. He also said that the true worshippers would worship in spirit and in truth. 
Jesus did not make these activities into formal rituals, but the Church has unfortunately turned these faith practices into a multitude of formal rituals that have now  become the reality instead of ‘the reality that is of Christ’, and contention over these formalities has plagued the Church with disunity for centuries.

Baptism is the reality of our identification by faith in the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus and our commitment to living in newness of life through Christ (Romans 6). Worship in spirit and in truth is the physical act of offering our bodies to God as a living sacrifice in humble adoration and prayer and the singing of our praise to God, and in our loving service to others. (Romans 12). Sharing Communion is our participation together in the mystery of the hidden life of Christ within us as Jesus said at the last supper. This cup that is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.
(Luke 22:20). We stop and linger in a moment-by-moment powerful remembrance of our oneness with God and with one another in the Body of Christ, as the lifeblood of his heart beats within our hearts.

In this life it is important for us to know what we believe, to know what we should do, and to know what to hope for. We are living in a world where many do not know what they believe, so they don’t know what they should do, and they have nothing to hope for. 

Knowing what we can believe
The world had to wait for nearly two thousand years for the supernatural work of the lifeblood of Jesus to become the fulfilment of life on earth for humanity. The Bible says that John saw Jesus coming to him, and he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), but it was more than just taking away sins, it was so that we could have life and not death. Jesus died and rose again to give us his life. Humanity could now be relieved from its mindset of separation from God and could have the faith and confidence to walk close to God and get to know him as a person. 

Knowing what we should do
Hebrews 10: 19 Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus … let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience 
As we spend more and more time in his presence, we receive the wisdom and guidance for our daily lives from the Holy Spirit to do God’s will for our lives. (1John 2:27 – the anointing abides in us and teaches us).

Having a hope for the future.
We no longer put faith in our rituals or demand signs and wonders but in a powerful life that dwells within us which becomes the main thought and activity of the renewed mind. This divine loving intelligent life never ceases to operate in us, and this is the essence and substance of our faith and gives us hope for the future. 

This God life is the powerful life energy that created the universe and orders everything in it, and this indwelling life in us creatively orders and reorders everything in our personal life and in our immediate world of people and things. If God who designed the movements of the galaxies and who created every molecule and atom and unseeable particle of matter and who has his eye on every sparrow, how much more is he vitally and personally interested in us as his beloved family that live ordinary lives and do unspectacular things. He yearns to participate in those ordinary yet special things with us in close and intimate Communion.