Broken Bread and Poured-Out Wine

"The Last Supper"

I love this man. I truly, truly love him.

His name is Yeshua ben Yosef. But you probably know him better as Jesus. Jesus son of Joseph, carpenter of Nazareth.

On the surface, there was probably nothing much to admire about him: the rumor of an illegitimate birth, an impoverished carpenter with no formal training in the Word of God, living in a small town looked down by Jews of the time as a place of the Samaritans; even Isaiah the prophet prophesied that he would not be much of a sight to behold:

"...his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness-"
- Isaiah 52:14 (NIV)

But I love this man. So do billions of men and women around the world and throughout history. And tonight, we commemorate his giving himself up as the broken bread and poured-out wine.

"When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."
- Luke 20:14-20 (NIV)

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Now, I referred to him as a man. And a man he indeed was; in fact, he constantly referred to himself as "Son of Man", which, in my understanding, means "Son of Adam", for the word "man" and "Adam" are the same in Hebrew.

Yet, I also believe that he is the Son of God, as he himself had claimed on more than one occasion.

Rather irrational, eh?

You can never come to terms with such notion unless you are willing to accept the fact that God, the LORD, the Almighty Jehovah, the Great I-Am, cares deeply for us insignificant and sinful human beings, and that He would actively take the initiative to redeem us from our sins.

The God that I know and trust does not simply set up an impossible-to-fulfill moral standard and wait idly to see who will have the grit and determination to fulfill it all and earn the right to enter into His Kingdom. If that were the case, Heaven will indeed be rather void of human presence.

Ask yourself this question: when God created Adam and put him in Eden, did He require of Adam an impeccable standard of moral awareness? NO. In fact, Adam did not even know good from evil! Perhaps nobody has told you this before: God created Adam to love him unconditionally as a son!

But Adam's distrust in God broke that relationship. Now, two things happened when Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God commanded him not to eat:

Firstly, his action showed that he doubted God would give him what was best for him, without any reserve. He doubted God's sovereignty and judgment. He doubted God's love. And by believing in Satan's deceit rather than God's truth, he aligned himself with the Deceiver (more strongly put: he became a slave to sin), thereby losing his rights as the son of God.

Secondly, he was unable to regain immediately the status of a son by simply repenting (which he did not, actually, for he accused Eve, and Eve accused the snake), because (I believe) of the knowledge of good and evil that he now had. The idea is very simple: with knowledge comes responsibility up to the extent of one's capability (this may seem awfully like paraphrasing Stan Lee's Spiderman, but, I think it was because Stan's philosophy had a biblical root), and any failure to carry out that responsibility is considered a sin. Take for example, if you do not know that your impoverished neighbor is in hunger, and in dire need of a simple loaf of bread to sustain his life, then you are not guilty of any sin; however, if you do know, and you do have some bread, but do nothing, therein is your sin. Sin is not limited to the presence of vice. It includes also the lack of action when you know something good within your ability needs to be done. Therefore, Adam (even if he was afterwards repentant) could not be simply reinstated without first ridding the problem of sin.

Now, even simply to have no vice at all is, by itself, an impossibility, let alone the requirement to do all the good that one is capable of! It is not humanly possible! Perhaps that was the reason why God prohibited the fruit in the first place.

Since it is impossible for a human being to be without sin, we must, at this point, conclude that Adam (and we his descendants) will never regain Paradise.

What a sad tale.

But this is only true if God does not actively care about human beings.

So, back to the original prerequisite: everything about Jesus only makes sense if you believe that God cares deeply - and actively, not passively - for us. Yes, that includes you.

Now, if God were to wait for us to achieve His standard of sinlessness, it would have been impossible for any human being to enter His Kingdom. But God took the initiative: He sent His only Son in flesh and blood to live up to His standard on earth, then received capital punishment despite his sinlessness, as a price that we ourselves should have paid for our countless sins.

"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-"
- John 1:12 (NIV)

Note here, therefore, the significance of Jesus referring to himself as "Son of Man (Son of Adam)". He is the Son of God, yet he constantly and emphatically claimed to be the "Son of Adam", so that everything he did, he did in place of us, the flesh and blood descendants of Adam. In another word, he came as the Son of Adam to fulfill the requirements that Adam and his natural sons should (but never could) fulfill. Then, having fulfilled the law, he gave up his rights (which came from fulfilling the law) to live and to be called the Son of God, and died instead on the cross, so that we, if we claim his name, can be the ones who live and be called the sons of God.

Now, how can I not love such a man?




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Epilogue
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I understand how hard it must still be for some of you out there to come to terms with the idea of the Son of God in flesh and blood.

I think the reason is that a lot of people have the same misconception I once had: that in the conception of the Holy Infant, Mary contributed her ovum, while the other half was God's mystery, wrought through the Holy Spirit. I cannot begin to tell you how wrong this understanding is. Such misconception stems from the influence we received from Greek mythology, in which Zeus was wont to impregnate attractive female mortals.

But it was not like that at all with Jesus. Do not associate any trace of lewdness with his Virgin Birth. Rather, consider what John has to say about this issue:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."
- John 1:1-2 (NIV)

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
- John 1:14 (NIV)

John made it clear: Jesus was God's Word (and the Word Himself was one with God) that became flesh. And we should take that to mean entirely. No blood relation even to Mary, who was only a vessel to carry him. He was Joseph's son (and thereby descendant of David) only in name, and because God decreed it so.

If you find it incredible that "Word" could become "flesh", remember that God made the entire universe from nothing but His word!

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Postscript
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The first picture above is a water color painting I painted according to the second picture, which I did earlier using a technique simple enough for anyone with the right tools to create great-looking graphics: first, use a broad-tip fountain pen or felt-tip pen (with black ink, preferably) to draw the picture you want in the fashion of stained glass. Then scan the drawing. Use any simple graphics editing software (at that time, I used Microsoft Window's Paintbrush) to fill in the colors. Then use any basic graphics enhancement software (at that time, I used Microsoft's Photo Editor) to give it some texture ("sandstone", I think) and render it with water color effect, and it's done.