The Staple

The staple is a small "pillar" of sorts, a metal band which holds everything together.  The holding together depends on the staple.  You wanna really hold something together, you very likely get a staple - they’re used in medicine, they’re used in construction - they’ve been around since ancient times. It can also refer to a food which is the pillar of sustenance for a group of people, they depend on it, it upholds and supports their group.

Is there a staple of the Christian faith?  What is it?

We could certainly suggest God’s Word.  Or what about God’s love?  God’s Word tells us that God demonstrates His love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  The death of Christ - I would like to suggest that THIS is the staple.  This is what holds it all together.  It holds us all together.  On this our salvation depends, our eternal destiny.  It is the pillar of our faith.  The core common confession.  It is the main, most important element of our faith.  The death of Christ.  Without Christ’s death, there is no forgiveness.  We depend on - and celebrate - this event, this truth.  It sets us apart.  And I think this is what we find in the early church.

Acts 2:42-47   

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

We begin and end with Jesus Christ.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.  We put Him first in all things and follow Him wherever He leads.  He is with us always, and we trust Him even in the darkest times. We feast on His Word and listen to Him and talk to Him.  We share our lives with those who are likewise following Him.   We gather together to remember and focus on and celebrate Him.  His life, and His resurrection, and His teachings, His example, His love.  And His sacrifice.  His death.  Jesus.

These early believers were devoting themselves to learning about Him and to loving one another with His love. They were devoting themselves to talking to Him.  And they were devoting themselves to what Luke calls “the breaking of the bread”.  There is actually considerable debate as to the particulars of that phrase and how this should be applied in the church.  How often were they doing this?  Only on the Lord’s Day? (cf Act 20.7) Or day by day - connected with verse 46?  When were they doing this, at what time of day?  The inaugural meal if you recall, when Jesus told them to “do this in remembrance of Me”, was literally a supper, the evening meal.  Where were they doing this?  Was it in their homes (as in verse 46)?  Was it only in some designated religious place?  Remember there was no church building at that time.  How institutional was this exactly?  Was there an organic regular remembrance and celebration of and expression of gratitude for the death of Jesus?  As in at every meal? 

It helps to remember that for the Jews, bread and wine were staples.  They would have had bread and wine at pretty much every meal.  Definitely bread.  It was their main staple.  When Jesus at the “last supper” took the bread and blessed it and broke it, He wasn’t doing anything unfamiliar.  That was nothing new.  The Jews - and lots of peoples in that part of the world - would have bread at every meal.  It was a staple - their society depended on it.  And in fact, on many occasions, that was the meal.  Bread - and water.  Or wine.  There are many cultures around the world where there is a grain or a starch which is served at almost every meal, aren't there?  In Latin America, you get tortillas.  And beans.  In much of Asia, you get what?  Rice.  At every meal.  In parts of Europe, it might be potatoes.  For the Jews in the wilderness, it was manna.  Manna, every meal, every day, manna.  Manna out the wazoo.  Manna bagels.  Manna hotcakes.  Manna waffles.  Manna burgers.  Filet of manna.  Manna-cotti.  Ba-manna bread.  Daily bread was both a necessity, and a cultural pillar.  Bread - whether from heaven or later from the earth - was their staple.

And so these people would have had bread at every meal, and would have customarily blessed it (given thanks) and broken it.  Sliced bread didn’t even exist at that time (1928, shout out to Otto Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa)(at the time it was called the best thing since wrapped bread!).  

But these believers easily could have taken the time to begin every meal by remembering and giving thanks for the death of Jesus.  Something is missing here in the English.  Luke tells us they were taking their meals together with gladness.  In English that means they were generally pleased, happy, grateful.  But that’s not the word in the Greek.  The word means extreme joy.  Exultation.  They were ecstatic.  Inexpressible joy, Peter calls it.  And I can see them, getting together for meals, and just overflowing with joy and gratitude as they broke their bread together - thank You, Lord, for Your death on the cross! Thank You, Jesus! We remember, we celebrate Your body broken for us!  It had invaded their lives and pervaded their assembly.

Now, sometime later, Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth about the Lord’s Supper:

1Corinthians 11:23-26   For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

Some call it the Eucharist.  This comes from where Paul says that Jesus took the bread, and after He gave thanks, He broke it.  The word for thanksgiving in the Greek is eucharistia.  Paul literally says, after Jesus eucharisted, He broke the bread.  Many call it Communion, or Holy Communion.  This comes from the idea of sharing, from the Latin word for common, which is communis.  Paul calls it the Lord’s Supper (in 1Cor 11:20).  So, not to be confused with a normal meal - Paul says eat those at home.  In fact, by the time Paul gets to writing about it, he is able to clarify a number of things for us, because thankfully he was instructed in the specifics of this by the Lord Himself.

THIS bread, he says.  Not just any bread.  This bread.  And THE cup.  Not Just any cup.  The cup of the Lord.  These are special.  These are for believers, followers of Christ.  These are symbols which help us remember and celebrate the death of Jesus.  Our Savior.  In Luke 24 there is a marvelous scene where two of Jesus’ followers actually encounter the just-risen-Jesus while walking to a nearby village. Luke tells us specifically that at first they couldn’t recognize Him, not even when He was explaining the Scriptures to them, but then when they reclined with Him for the evening meal, they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread.  And so we see the early church devoting themselves to the breaking of the bread.  But not just any bread.  THIS bread, and THE cup.

And Paul says, as often as you eat it.  So, regular.  But there is no clear directive.

 

Acts 20:7   On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight.

Some take Acts 20.7 to establish a precedence for celebrating the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day.  I’m not convinced that the passage requires this.  It is possible that Paul wanted to mark out that particular occasion with those beloved Ephesian believers as a special farewell and thus wanted to be sure to include a celebration of the Lord’s Supper in their time.

Without taking a stand on whether this should be a weekly thing within the church - and I think one could just as easily make a case for it being more periodic - or even daily (more on that in a bit), we can clearly see that we are talking about something regular.  A regular habit of proclaiming, of remembering and celebrating the death of Jesus.  Together. 

Until He comes, Paul adds.  It is perpetual.  In other words, on this side of heaven, there is never a time when God’s people should not be remembering and celebrating and proclaiming the death of Jesus. 

But what is crystal clear is that the breaking of this bread, this drinking of the cup of the Lord - it was and is fundamentally about proclaiming the Lord’s death.  Declaring that, affirming that, giving thanks for that.  The death of Jesus.  The Hero of the Story - betrayed and put to death in the cruelest of ways - and yet He himself declared, it was for this that He came.  He came to die.  For this purpose I came to this hour, He said (Jn 12.27).  That is the reason He stepped down out of heaven and onto our broken planet in the first place.  The birth, the baby in the manger, all the pomp and circumstance with which we are celebrating this month [December] (this season actually - since Halloween even?) - it was all directed towards a cruel and horrific Roman execution.  And yet a glorious sacrifice which would fully satisfy all the requirements of the law of God, which He had given to His people.  Jesus’ death was to be the all-sufficient payment for all the sins of the whole world.  Mine and yours included.  This season of giving traces its roots to the best and greatest gift ever, to a hill far away, to an old rugged cross, where the dearest and best was slain, for a world of lost sinners.  Each one of us has gone astray in our hearts from the Lord - that is sin.  We put other things in God’s rightful place.  We go so far astray that we are fairly described as lost - until someone shows us the way home, the way home being the death of Christ.  In the Lord’s Supper, we celebrate the way home, the Lord’s death - the death of this One Who came to seek and to rescue that which was lost.  And we do it often.  Until He comes.

In most of the two thirds world, daily bread is a real thing.  Particularly in the Middle East.  Bread is served at every meal.  And outside of the wealthier households, bread can form the bulk of what you might eat at a meal.  If you don’t have bread, you might be going hungry.  Hunger is in fact lurking around the corner for much of the world (if he’s not already all up in your kitchen).  Bread is not just A staple - it is THE staple.  You don’t have Sam’s and Super Walmart.  You don’t have big pantries and huge freezers.  You still go out every day to get your daily bread.  Literally.  That’s how we lived in Slovakia.  There was a little potraviny on the corner, and we stopped in every day to get our fresh bread for the day.  Or else you make it yourself.  But there was none of this head over to the mega stuffmart once every week or two and load up the family hauler with staples and niceties.  No sir.  Daily bread.  Literally.

And here comes the Son of God.  Declaring that, “I am the Bread of life.”

John 6:31-35 “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” Then they said to Him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst”.

We need to try and understand how that sounded to first century Middle Eastern subsistence-level ears.  Bread WAS their life.  And they needed it every day.  For many, every day was a new opportunity to trust God for the bread, for their literal food for that day.  For their subsistence.  For their very existence.  Certainly that was the lesson the Lord wanted them to learn.  And He would teach it to us, too, Suburbans and Super Walmarts notwithstanding

And the deeper truth is, that what we really need every day, is not physical food.  Not the local cultural starch or legume or tuber, but rather we need the Bread of life.  The Bread which came down out of heaven.  THE Staple.  Jesus.  The Son of God Who came to give life to the world.  Real life.  Eternal life.  Life as it was always meant to be.  Life - through death.  The ultimate paradox.  That by the death of the eternal Son of God, we would find eternal abundant life.

This is the Good News!  The Gospel, the Good Spiel.  The Evangel, the Ev-angel.  From the Greek, euangellion.  Eu, prefix meaning good, and angellion, meaning message.  An angel is a messenger from God, one sent with a message.  Evangelism then is sharing this Good News with others.  An evangelical then is one who has believed (and shares) the Good News about Jesus.  This season we like to read the first “ev-angel”:

Luke 2:9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of GREAT JOY which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

And this baby was born to die.  That’s the evangellion, the Good News.  Christ the Messiah.  Savior.  The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world (1Jn 4.10).  Just as He had been promising since the very beginning.  Just as He had been preparing His people to recognize since He first led them out of slavery in Egypt.  Messiah.  The Son of Man crushing the heel of the serpent.  Crushing the law of sin and death.  Life.  And love.  Love incarnate.  Love, showed up.  This baby grew up, and walked among us.  Finite, fallen creatures.  Straying in our hearts, going away from the God Who made us and so loves us.  All of us.  We all put other things in God’s place.  We all choose to go our own independent way and do what we want instead of what He wants.  This is what the Bible calls sin, and there is a penalty, a payment which must be made as a consequence of our disobedience.  Separation from God.  And death.  It is a death penalty.  Eternal separation from this God Who so loves me.  We all each one of us deserve it, deserve to pay this death penalty.  I can pay it - or I can find a substitute, someone who might love me enough to care to die in my place.  But they must be innocent.  They must not be guilty of the same thing.  Maybe my wife, or my son or daughter might be willing to die for me.  I would certainly be willing to die for them.  To pay their death penalty.  But I am guilty too.  I am guilty of the same thing.  I have gone away from God in my heart, too.  So much as I might be willing to die for them, I am unsuited.  Unqualified.  We need a Substitute Who is innocent.  A perfect, innocent sacrifice.  A spotless lamb - that was the imagery which God gave the Jews in the law He delivered through Moses.  The Passover lamb.  A baby sheep.  Behold, the Lamb of God.  The Baby, the Babe in the manger.  The Baby Who was born to die.  He came for you, and He came for me.  We’re getting ready to celebrate His birth.  8 pound 6 ounce baby Jesus, was born to die.  And He’s not simply a punchline in a movie.  The world would like to keep Him consigned to a cradle, a catchy lyric in a classic rock song.  But He came for the Cross.  He carried the Cross, and climbed right up on it.  Christmas is magical, miraculous, yes.  But that leads us to what we call “Good Friday”.  Fully God, and fully human - Jesus grew up, and He did live a perfect life.  Never ever went away from His Father.  He was totally innocent.  Sinless perfection.  The only One Who has ever lived Who could make such a claim.  And thus He is the only One Who could pay our death penalty.  Mine and yours.  The only One.  Which is why He is the only way.  The eve of His death, He said as much, declaring, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life - no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Now the world doesn’t like that.  The world doesn’t like to hear that, does it?  Too exclusive, they say.  Too narrow.  Too intolerant.  They’re okay with Santa and the Easter Bunny, and maybe the baby in the manger.  But the world tries its darndest to convince itself - and us - that there are other ways than the cruel Cross.  Other paths.  Other truths.  There is no one absolute truth, they insist.  Well is that absolutely true?  The words of Jesus, recorded by eyewitnesses who were executed without recanting on their testimony: 

Matt. 7:13-14   “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

John 10:7-11   So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.  I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”

Do you believe this?  You should.  The first believers were devoting themselves to the breaking of the bread.  They couldn’t contain themselves, really.  Extreme joy and exultation!  Love had come!  God’s Promised Messiah.  The Lamb of God.  The body of Christ, broken for them on the Cross.  The blood of Christ, shed for them to purchase forgiveness for their sins.  His death in their place!  They were devoting themselves, they were continuing in remembering this.  This One, Who declared Himself to be the Way, the only Way, the narrow Gate, the only Door, the Good Shepherd Who lays down His life for the sheep.  This is the Good News, the Gospel.  This is what we remember, what we celebrate, what we declare to the world.  The death of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.  God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.

Is. 53:5  

But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds.

They were devoting themselves to remembering this.  Now, were they doing this every day, as often as they broke bread?  Were they doing this weekly, on the Lord’s Day, when they gathered for these other things, the apostles’ teaching and fellowship and prayer?  Were they reserving this as a special ritual for more of a monthly or even an annual sacrament?  Again, there is disagreement among some Christians on this point.  Some do advocate for a weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  That our Sunday gatherings should build to this, should focus on this.  Others believe that the frequency of a weekly celebration could result in a loss of the grandeur of the event.  That it could become too much of a routine, a ritual - which has indeed happened in some Christian circles.  Some well-meaning souls turn it into a work, something which one must do in order to earn the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life.

I’ll tell you what I believe.  I believe that by grace we are saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves - it is the gift of God, not as a result of works.  And I do believe that we, each one of us, need to remember and celebrate this truth every day, whether together or by ourselves.  This is the truth, the Truth of truths - the staple of our soul, that we really desperately need a Savior, and His Name is Jesus.  He died for us, He died for the sins of the world.  He died for my sins, and He died for yours.  It’s a game changer.  This life-changing world-changing truth holds our soul together like no staple ever could.  It holds His people together.  This blood is thicker than the waters of life which try to separate and pull us apart.  He died to take away our sins.  Do you believe this?

John 1:29   …[John] saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

1John 2:2 He gave his life to pay for our sins. But he not only paid for our sins. He also paid for the sins of the whole world. 

Believe the Gospel, and Preach it to Yourself - Every Day

Jesus paid it all.  All is forgiven.  Washed whiter than snow.  Sin and death are defeated.  And if I would rise above the power and penalty of sin, I need Jesus.  I need Him every day.  I need to remind myself of the truth about Jesus and to celebrate it every day.  I need to proclaim it to my own heart each and every day.

We tend to respond to life in a fallen world disconnected from this truth we confess. Anger, fear, panic, discouragement, worry stalk our hearts and whisper a false gospel that will lure our lives away from what we say we believe.  The battleground is our self-talk.  What is it that is capturing my idle thoughts? What fear or frustration or lie is filling my spare moments?  Will I just listen to myself, or will I start talking? No, preaching. Not letting my concerns shape me, but filtering my concerns with the Gospel.  Preaching the Good News to my heart!

Jesus paid it all.  All to Him I owe.  Sin had left a crimson stain - He washed it white as snow.  He washed it white as snow.  O praise the One Who paid my death… We need this truth every day, every hour.  Remembering Him, preaching this Good News to our hearts, as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup - and more.  Daily bread.  It is our Staple.  THE Staple.

If you’ve never put your trust in Jesus and received His free gift of forgiveness and eternal life, you need to do that.  You need to do it as soon as you’re ready, and probably before that.  You need to do that today - because tomorrow is never guaranteed...