Communion 28th October 2007
Passage 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

As we come to the Lord’s Supper we major on the death of the Saviour. His name is Jesus and His cross is the great high point of human history.

The Christian world view asserts that humanity has a problem - a basic foundational problem - and that we are incapable of dealing with that problem.

The Church of Christ believes that God moved by His grace to deal with that problem because He loves humanity. What we do here today as we take the bread and the cup focuses on God’s victorious solution to man’s insuperable problem.

God did it by a Cross. Or to be more precise He did it by the death of the One who died on the Cross. The problem is sin and the solution is Christ.

Sin is essentially rebellion against God. It is putting self and our ideas first. It is about our rejecting of God’s way. Sin is the cause of death, illness and every other reality that makes human life difficult. That’s what the Christian Church teaches. Sin is manifested in broken families, rebellious children, broken vows, international conflict, greed, selfish ambition and pride. Sin is the reason why we are out of step with God and why we are without hope. It is why the human predicament is so serious. It was the reason God sent His Son and it was the reason that He went to the Cross. As He did He became cursed. He suffered as no other man has ever suffered - He identifies with our suffering - so that no one would ever suffer separation from God.

The Apostle Paul put it like this in 2 Cor 5:21 “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might be the righteousness of God”

Let’s break that text up as we prepare to come to His Table.
For our sake: God’s activity in Christ was for you and me. - In the eternal counsels of God He had you and me in mind when He sent Jesus - God the Son into the world. You and I matter to God. This is the staggering grace of God. Of course it is ‘amazing Grace’. There is nothing in us to merit this grace. He did not say ‘make yourselves better and I will love you’ - He simply loved us. His love is unique - for it is love of the loveless.

CS Lewis was asked at a Conference of World Religious Thought - ‘What is unique about Christianity?’ He replied, ‘That’s easy. It’s Grace’.

This table is all about Him and all about us. It takes us to a lonely hill outside Jerusalem where the Son of God and God the Son died a hideous death.

For our sake He made Him to be sin: God in an act of pure love and through His Son’s obedience made His Son to be an sin offering to satisfy God’s righteous demands. Again in the eternal counsels of God it was determined that His Son would die for sinners like you and me.

It was deliberate and decisive. God in an act of love and righteousness gave His Son for ‘there was no other good enough to pray the price of sin, He only, could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in’. There is no other way. It could not be a man who would die for sinners - for all men are sinners. And so God in Christ came as a man - In the wonder of His incarnation He was fully man and fully God.

In Gethsemane we get the power of this as He voluntarily goes to the do the will of God after a night of agony during which He sweated blood. So Jesus goes to the Cross as the sacrifice and as the Priest for He offered Himself.

“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin; it’s a glorious truth of the Christian Faith that Jesus was sinless. Only a sinless Saviour could die effectively and savingly for sinners.

His life was a powerful one. Everyone who met Him was struck by His Being. His voice made fishermen - successful entrepreneurial men - give up their businesses. His life and its qualities meant that in the end Pilate had to hired false witnesses against Him. Pilate said ‘I find no fault in Him’.

He healed the sick, cleansed the lepers and raised the dead. He had no sin of His own. He could sin but never did because He was God. He was the only One who would fit God’s plan. God had to become one of us. In the wonder of the Cross and the death of Christ - He called out “My God, my God why have you forsaken Me?” This is the deepest place in human history. For God the Son is being forsaken by God the Father. Luther called it the ‘Cry of Dereliction’. It is the cost of our Redemption - that the eternal Son was forsaken by the eternal Father. He was made to be son although He had no sin.

The Chruch does not focus on the physical sufferings of Christ as to get us to feel sorry for Jesus. Other men had been crucified and have been since. It is not His physical sufferings although they were simply dreadful it is this forsaken by God - that is the core of this Lord’s Super. The sinless One died for me. As I take this bread and cup in my hands today it is no empty ritual - it is to be considered, it is to be rejoiced in, it is to be amazed, it is to be humbled - it is to feed upon Him by faith.

“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might be the righteousness of God” This is called the great exchange. He died according to God’s eternal counsel and will so that - sinner that I am - I might become the righteousness of God in Him. In other words I share in His victory - in His sinless death - in His majestic triumph. It’s just like getting a new set of clothes. The old suit of my attempted rightness with God is cast of and I am clothed in His righteousness.

To put is simply I am adopted into His family. I have peace with God. I have an assured future. I have my past forgiven. I have my sin blotted out. In short I am born again. How often have you thought or heard said “I wish I could start again”. The news is that you can.

This Lord’s Supper is memorial of His death. By it we show the Lord’s death until He comes.
As we come to the Communion let us remember this text
“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might be the righteousness of God”

Not as an exercise in memory but as a reality that deeply impacts our lives.