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A Package from Home

I Peter 5:6-11

Peter’s package from Christ!  “You are the Messiah, the Christ! 

In every listing of Jesus’ disciples, Peter’s name is invariably first.  Peter’s influence was enormous.  Peter was an energetic preacher, an ardent prayer, bold healer, and his unyielding faith confirmed the trust Jesus placed in him.  How Peter handled himself in the position of power is more impressive than power itself.  Peter stayed out of the center, thus he maintained a scrupulous subordination to Jesus.  Yes, Peter’s position was at the head, and yet Peter embraced suffering rather than prestige, and a humility that lacked nothing in vigor or imagination.

From what we know of the early stories of Peter, he had in him all the makings of a bully.  Religious bullies are the worst kind.  However, Peter did not become a bully but he did become to what he himself describes as “a brand-new life, with everything to live for.”  But in death, he asked to die exactly as his Master had.  Peter reminded us to “cast all our cares on Christ.”

Writing in Leadership Journal, Pastor Martin Thielen of Honolulu wrote about a service in which he had presided over the observance of the Lord’s Supper.  He said that a few weeks earlier, he had read a Lord’s Supper sermon by John Claypool in which he told the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a brilliant young pastor and seminary teacher who opposed Hitler’s policies in the 1930’s.  On April 5, 1943, the Germans arrested Dietrich Bonhoeffer and put him into prison.  Two years later, he was executed.  Bonhoeffer was hanged on the gallows just days before the Allies swept in to liberate Germany.

About ten weeks after Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s arrest, Dietrich Bonhoeffer ended a latter to his parents with these words:

“It is Monday, and I was just sitting down to a dinner of turnips and potatoes when a parcel you sent me by Ruth arrived.  Such things give me greater joy than I can say.  Although I am utterly convinced that nothing can break the bonds between us, I seem to need some outward to ken or sign to reassure me.  In this way, material things become the vehicles of spiritual realities.  I suppose it is rather like the felt need in our religion for sacraments.”  The elements of bread, wine, and water.  Yes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew without a doubt that his parents loved him.  Yet he stilled hungered for the love to be reaffirmed.  He needed to be reminded of their love in a tangible way.  His packages from home served that purpose, and Bonhoeffer saw the Lord’s Supper doing the same. 

The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of Christian hope: “…till He comes.”  Each time we come to this meal, it reminds us of Christ’s redeeming grace.  The grace summed up in all we know about God.  It is God’s care package from heaven.

Perhaps you too may recall how much you too enjoy receiving packages from home that served as powerful reminders that our parents loved and were thinking of us.  Today, we come with countless others around the globe to remember and celebrate in the meal where in Christ our Lord “took bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples.”  Then, “after supper he took the cup and thanked God, he gave it to them.”

Come brothers and sisters in Christ, let us partake.  A package from home has arrived.  Let us eat and drink and be reminded of God’s awesome love for his children.

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