Hungry For The Antidote Bread-Thirsty For Antidote Cup

Breakout Scriptures:

Revelation 15,5-16,4: "After this I looked, and the temple of the tent of witness in heaven was opened....."

And out of this temple (soon to come down to earth) come all manner of blessings and the seven last plagues.

Hebrews 12,22-24: "But we have come to Mount Zion and to othe city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem... 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel."

Focus Scriptures:

Leviticus 7,12: "If he offers it [peace offering] by way of thanksgiving he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes of well stirred fine flour mixed with oil.

Revelation 16,4: "Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters and they became blood" [provision and goodness of creation becomes plague because of our human misuse].

Pslam 16,4-5: "I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood [and so drink judgment]. Nor will I take their names on my lips. 5. The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup.

Synthesis

The Spiritual sacrifice (1Peter2,5) of the Lord's Table is a command by Jesus that we eat his body and drink his blood to have his life in us (John 6). This command fits well with the like minded serious and sacrificial context of 1Corinthians10-12 which speaks of real food and drink, and altars, and folks even perishing or getting sick because they partake without proper faith. 

It is not only a Spiritual sacrifice but blended into sacred meal as well.

Thus, it also represents our continued desire to share in Jesus' physical and Spiritual blessings that this meal affords.

Nowhere does scripture say that his body and blood are symbols.

We humans don't hunger and thirst for symbols- we hunger and thirst for His body and His blood, for real food and real drink, no less real because they are Spiritual (John 6,63: the Spirit is the lifegiver, the flesh does not benefit at all.").

We hunger and thirst for God himself, who is Spirit!

And we get this hunger and thirst quenched at the table of the Lord.

Here's the bible logic.

The temple in heaven is open for all manner of blessings or cursings (Revelation 15,5-16.4 and Hebrews 12,22-24).

Thus, Christ blood is still being sprinkled form there so to speak (Isaiah52,13). He has no more physical blood, and none of us have ever been washed by his physical blood, so his sprinkled blood in these focus scriptures refers to the Holy Ghost.

So while Abel's physical blood cried out from earth for retribution, Christ's Spiritual blood, cries out from heaven saying: "if you have a repentant faith, I will both wash you clean of your sins, and give you all my merciful blessings that come by way the the Holy Spirit." 

When come to the table, and by and with faith bless the unleavened bread and the cup of salvation (Psalm 16,5), we are (by faith) calling down the reality of the Holy Ghost into them, and actually infusing them with oil so to speak according to Leviticus 7,12.

And when this literally happens, they become real food and real drink.

This is all part of Jesus' gift of the better priesthood, mediated by Jesus our one high priest in heaven, and a better covenant, mediated by him too, whereby, as Spirit filled beings, we likewise eat and drink His Spiritual body and Spiritual blood, fitting food and drink for our actually new and circumcized heart, our actually new life, and actual victory over sin and death.

Take Away:

Just as the Israelites in the desert were given bread from heaven and water from the rock, as antidotes against despair and all lack, so we are given the blessings of the Lord's table.

Wherever we look, we see folks on the edge of despair, freaked out by lack and struggle, and ready to give up.

Don't give up beloved of Jesus- cast your cares on him- because he cares for you.

Bring all your lack to the table of the Lord and let him give you salvation and refresh and provide for you.

His body and blood are antidotes to the temptation to turn back to Egypt and our slavery to Pharoah and to sin. His body and blood are antidotes to the untruths and deceptions that the world continually feeds us.

Antidotes to the struggle and worry of gaining our daily bread.

Antidotes for the plagues of famine and draught and war we have brought on ourselves, and which God  is now letting us see and taste.

Final Prayer

Lord Jesus that we would hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice, and that no one would lose hope in you who has ever known you. That the lost and despairing would turn to you as their antidote to this fallen world.

That every time we come to the table in faith we could taste and see more of you. That we would be renewed at this table and experience the protection and provision of you our rock, and be hidden in you and in your loving protections, thriving in your blessings, marked out for all manner of grace come down from on high.

In Jesus NAME I pray.

For video re. this supper: http://vimeo/63572579