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Christ, The Sabbath
Episode #173
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Julie and Don
(J) So, what I’ve seen is that Christ came in, and He is always ‘up the ante’ for everything. He said not only are you going to have a Sabbath once a week, I’m going to be your Sabbath rest; I’m going to be every day. Ok, Passover, remember the Blood, remember the Blood that saved you from death. Ok, well now remember it all the time. Let Me be the remembrance all the time. And , you know, He upped the ante of everything. If you look at a woman lustfully, you’ve committed the act, not just if you’ve done the act. So everything was ‘upped’. He says let Me just make sure that it’s completely impossible. I know that it was completely impossible for you to do the Law. But just so you don’t think in any way that you could even keep a moment of it, let Me just ‘up the ante’ here. And so, I just see that that is the answer to the Passover for me, is that He is the Passover, and He is the rest, He is the requirement, He is the answer.
(M) There’s only One who could do what He’s commanded us to do, and that is Him.
(J) So, but He just took it, He took it beyond. He said, ok, I’m going to make sure you can’t do it, so that you know you have to have Me, so that I have to be the answer.
(Julie) Martha, I think one of the things that just struck me as you were speaking that I believe for me has affected why this has come so alive. You are always pointing us to the Person, and to meet, to look to the Person, and to meet the Person in everything. So even when the Spirit began to introduce this into our group, about the communion ceremony, it was never a dead ceremony. You had us looking at Him and you’ve taught us to look at Him as mystery, so there’s kind of a humility that we come to the table with, of not expecting that ‘we know’ what’s going to happen, or Who He is, or what it’s going to mean. And I’ve been amazed, as we’ve partaken of the ceremony; it hasn’t been at all a ritual. It’s been a fresh encounter that’s continued to just branch out and …. He’s just amazing. And I think there’s something to that… I don’t think I’m expressing it real well, maybe somebody else can. But it’s coming to it with a expectation that ‘you don’t know’. That I don’t know Who He is, and I don’t understand what the Blood is, or what it’s done for me, or how I need it today, or what sin I have that needs to be covered. And so it’s a certain humility of… I don’t know, I’m not getting it, sorry. It’s just a humility of … I guess in my mind I can see it as when I’m coming to that table, when I’m coming to the Blood, and coming to the Bread, I’m meeting a Person who’s this gigantic mystery to me. And I don’t know what He’s going to do, and I don’t know how He’s going to respond, and I don’t know what I need. I just know that I totally and completely need Him, and I even need Him to tell me how I need Him. And so it becomes an enormously living experience that’s different every day, and it’s, it’s anything but a ritual. And I can confess as a former Pharisee, you know, there was a time I could have known the words, I could have told you the scriptures, but it was just dead. It was just dead knowledge; there was no Person in it, there was no Life in it. And this is completely different.
(M) It’s the difference between… Thank you Julie, you’ve just drawn a great picture, because it’s the difference between knowing that the Blood saved us, and experiencing Him Who is the salvation Himself. It’s a huge difference between knowing the Blood as ‘I can tell you everything it did’. I could tell you everything it did. The Blood saved us; the Blood answered Satan’s accusations. That doesn’t help me, unless I eat it, and drink it. So thank you for making that visual. I don’t really want to leave the Blood, and we may come back to it. But because it’s Good Friday, I want to talk about His Body, partaking of His Body. And, I’ve seen it this way. He said … I remember the day I was reading, I don’t have the scripture before me, but it was that through His flesh the way was opened, and the veil was rent through His flesh. And I absolutely was stunned, because I had the revelation. And of course, not a bone was broken. But His flesh was completely shredded off His Body, and His flesh was pierced by the sword. And His flesh was punctured and ripped and torn and shredded, just an unspeakable actual ripping of His flesh. And as He died the temple veil was split in two, and that was His opening the way through His very flesh, into the Holy of Holies. And that was my view; and it’s doctrinally accurate. But I saw it. And I experienced just the overwhelming recognition of what it cost Him, and what the flesh meant. Secondly, I understood eating His flesh is partaking of His very being, His nature. The Blood represents taking His Life, but the flesh represents taking His nature into you so that you live Him, and He is you, and you are Him. It’s taking Him ‘in’ as the answer to your sin, so that when you get up from the table… And that area that you have put under the Blood, you have received His Life ‘to be different’, over that very thing you put under the Blood. Does that make sense? So… But as always, my greatest probably, teacher, is T. Austin Sparks, and Oswald Chambers, and Watchman Nee, and Andrew Murray, but… (Martha laughs) But Austin Sparks…. I read this yesterday, and it quite expanded for me the fact of His flesh. Andrew Murray says that… He calls His flesh ‘broken’; through His broken Body. He broke the bread. When we take communion we break the wafer as symbolic of His breaking. Here’s what T. Austin Sparks writes. He says that we were broken in the garden, that we are broken, damaged beings. We are irreparably broken, and that… This is going to be part my understanding, and part his revelation. But when His Body was broken, He entered our brokenness, with Himself as the solution. We are no longer broken. We are whole in Him. (Martha speaks this next part with tears.) And when we take that Bread and break it, we are signifying that we are letting His brokenness heal ours, and that we are partaking of His absolute perfection and holiness, and wholeness. It says we have the fullness of Christ. That is all given. We couldn’t receive it in a thousand lifetimes, but corporately we can receive it from each other as we receive it. Somehow, somehow when we take this table, it affects the whole Body of Christ. And that’s a complete mystery in itself. But when we take His broken Body, we remember that He was broken for our restoration, our unbrokeness, our fullness; we take His fullness in place of our complete destruction. And that to me is that I’ve wanted to go into the taking of His Body, and this is… I would have wanted to spend more time on it than I have. But in the recent days when I’ve been ill, I have somehow touched the sense and experience with Him of His, the shredding of His flesh, and the fellowship of His sufferings in that way. And it’s made it very real to me, I’ll just say, I can’t… I won’t go into it, but I’ll just say it’s made the taking of His flesh extremely and excruciatingly real to me. When we take that wafer and break it, we are remembering that He entered our brokenness, and gave us His wholeness. So that’s my Easter message. It was on the night in which He was betrayed that He gave this supper. And it’s always just wrecked me that knowing what He was going to go through, which He did know, probably fully, He gave His Blood that night, and offered His Body that night, before it happened. And that He will have this banquet with us again, but we partake of it now to remember Him. And to me it is the one feast, the one festival, the one celebration of the New Testament, and I’m jealous for it. And I know there will be a lot of people that don’t agree, fine, but this is my revelation. This feast is my precious festival and celebration and remembrance. So, for me the Passover passed over into the Communion Table and became the visible, actual, Body and Blood of Christ, whereas in the Passover it was symbolic, though it was real, it was symbolic. Now it’s no longer symbol, it’s living. It is given and continually being given. And we are continually discovering it as the living, living substance, and not a dead doctrine. So… This is going to come out on Easter morning, and so we, we… (Everyone laughs. In the background someone says, ‘a special four part edition.’) (John comments in the background….’I haven’t figured that one out.’)
(Don) Well with what you have been sharing, I thought back to where He’s in Gethsemane, and the agony that He’s going through, I mean shedding, literally, tears of blood. And you remember that, and then when He starts, He starts with, “ With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” There’s almost excitement in His voice. To know that, what you were sharing is that the Passover is now set aside, He now takes the place that He will live on. And we don it in remembrance by the breaking of His Body, literally, because He knows that’s going…. And the drinking of His Blood that gives us that Life to live on. So He has now taken that place. And then He shares and He says, “For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes, until it is finished and it is the end.” But I got hung up when you were sharing because He gets to the place, even through His agony, where there is great excitement and enthusiasm. He’s excited to share this Passover with those who have been with Him on this trip, so that they understand that He lives on. And we do this in remembrance of what He’s freely given for us.
(M) You know Don, as I was looking at this yesterday that was the verse that struck me. I’ve never seen it before. And the Amplified He said to them, “I have earnestly, and intensely, desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” And that… You got the amazement of that, and I think I left it out. But that’s astonishing. He earnestly desired for this particular occasion. And He knew He was going to suffer. But such was His, as you say, desire, and almost joy.
(Don) An excitement and willingness.
(M) Yeah, umhmm. It says “for the joy set before Him.” It’s incredible, we don’t know. That’s another mystery, Julie.
