Jesus Shared the "Missing Link"

This is my body, which is given for you.
Luke 22.19
This is my blood…which is poured out for many.
Mark 14.24

We have already spoken of how Jesus came to share our humanity with us by setting aside his station with God the Father to become born one of us. (See 3/3/10 dE-votion) But Jesus did not come empty handed, so to speak. Christ brought something absolutely precious to share with us, something that had been lost which we in no ways could recover for ourselves.

You see, in the Fall a vital connection, a link if you will, between God and man had been broken and lost. With it had gone something that God had always intended to be part of being human—eternal life. For God had formed man, the one creature in all the material universe to bear the divine image, to be with him for eternity. Again, that part of who we were created to be, that essential link with God, had been lost.

But, as noted above, Jesus came not just to partake in our humanity, but to make it possible for us to share in his life, and through him obtain that which had been lost to us, Christ restored the missing link between God and man by himself becoming that very link. As Jesus himself said, he had come so that we

may have life and have it abundantly.
John 10.10

If you will permit me, how abundant can life be if it falls short of eternity? It would be life with something missing, something God had always intended to be part of what it is to be fully human.

In the supper the Lord shared with his apostles on the night before he was crucified Jesus shared with his followers, in a powerful spiritual reality, something that he would share with all of us in an awful physical reality on the cross, his perfect righteousness and his innocent life. Christ’s righteousness was symbolized in the bread, his body which he would obediently give up to God for our sakes on the cross, the complete and perfect fulfillment of his Father’s will. Christ’s innocent life was symbolized in the wine, his sinless blood which would be poured out on the cross as the one acceptable sacrifice for our sins. It is Christ’s righteousness and his life that reconnect us to God.

By giving us the meal as a sacrament, Christ made it possible for the most precious gift he shared wit us, the restoration of our relationship with God and eternal life, to be preserved and passed on to all succeeding generations. To contemplate in the meal the meaning of what Jesus did on the cross for us, in sharing with us, as fully as ever could be shared, his life, is to know the fullness of God’s agape, God’s selfless love. There is no more solemn, yet joyous, occasion in the life of believers than to be invited to celebrate this supper.

The question is, how do we do what Jesus did? Well, in his sharing with us Jesus held nothing back, he offered all of himself to us and for us. And I believe that as Christ lives in us, he would, through us, yet share himself to the utmost with others. This is to say that each of us have both the obligation and opportunity to so give and share of our lives in Christ that others may receive Jesus, and so be reconnected with God and have eternal life.

It may seem obvious, but we cannot share what we don’t have. This is to say that if we don’t have Jesus, if he has not entered in and taken possession of our heart, and filled us with the love of God, there is no way we can share any of him with another. Here is how I believe it works; if we are not filled up with Jesus we can’t share him; if we are filled up with him, we cannot not share him. So, if we haven’t been sharing Jesus with others it is a sure sign we ourselves are in need of being filled up with the Spirit. Once filled with Christ, we do not hold anything back from those who need what we have, we seek to share all we have and all of who we are with others. That’s what Jesus did.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
Psalm 37.4