Crammed full

"And again [Jesus] said, “To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”

Jesus deals with sin at this Table, but not necessarily in the way we expect. Too often we think of this as a second time of confession, to examine our lives again to make sure we are righteous enough to partake. But our Lord deals with our sin in a different way here. He knows we can’t sweep the house clean of sin and just leave it empty. Seven more sins will invade it. No, that house needs to be filled with something else. We are to put off sin in our lives. But we can’t just squash it. Self-denial must be directed positively to Christ. We must repent to Him, and desire to serve and honor Him. We have to pull up the weeds, and plant vegetables or flowers. We have to remove the leaven of wickedness, but let Christ suffuse the loaf with the leaven of the kingdom. So how does Jesus deal with our sin here? He crams us full of the bread of life, so we don’t have room or need for habits that eat away at our soul. He gives us the wine of joy so we don’t need weeds of bitterness. Why go back to pig slop, when you have such a banquet of love spread out for you?

1/24/10