MESSING UP/CLEANING UP

Messing Up/Cleaning Up

Who enjoys cleaning up after a big family dinner? My wife and I have a big family dinner once a fortnight. Afterwards, all the fun and joy of relaxing with our children and our children’s children turns into scraping plates and filling dishwashers etc. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have someone clean up our mess for us?

What Adam messed up, the new Adam cleaned up. The Serpent as it were said, ‘Take, eat.’ ‘Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened…’ ‘She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened…’ Genesis 3:4-5a & 6b-7a. What did Adam and Eve see after they had dined with demons? They saw that they had messed up and tried to cover up their mess with fig leaves. But who was going to clean up after them?

‘And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body” Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins”’ Matthew 26:26-28.

After His death and subsequent resurrection, two men were walking and talking on the road to Emmaus. ‘So it was, while they conversed, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him’ Luke 24:15-16. Not recognising Him, they walked and talked with Jesus about all the things that had happened to Him. Then they invited Him to stay with them. ‘Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight’ Luke 24:30-31.

Adam’s eyes were opened after attending the forbidden fruit dinner with Eve and Satan. But after that eye-opening event, he went into hiding, not wanting to know the Lord. Likewise, mankind’s eyes have been restrained ever since, so that we don’t recognise Him. The Lord must open your eyes before you will know Him (John 3:3).

The two men? ‘And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread’ Luke 24:32-35.

Have you ever dined with Jesus? At our family dinners we ask the Lord to bless our food, our family and our time together. He is in our midst. At the Lord’s Table, the minister sets aside the bread and wine for a spiritual use. Jesus is known in the breaking of the bread. ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ However, just as the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden, so is the bread and wine to those ‘not discerning the Lord’s body’ 1 Corinthians 11:29b. Jesus is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). Are you still dining with demons in a sewer? Or are you supping with the Saviour in His Kingdom?

Messed up people come to Jesus to be cleaned up.