10.2 Eucharist and Ekenosis

The Greek “eucharist” means literally, to speak good grace. The word then became the name of the Communion service, in which we bring Jesus into our minds as we partake of His flesh and His blood together, becoming just like Him.

The Greek word “ekenosis” was made up by Paul, a word that never existed before in any Greek speaking. Paul invented ekenosis by combining two regular Greek words, ek, meaning “out from” and kenosis, meaning “emptiness.” Thus, ekenosis means, literally, “out from emptiness,” or in the context in which Paul placed his invented word, “out from invisibility.” Thus it is the name we give to that wondrous work of Jesus in which He called forth an invisible God to be seen and known through His human form.

Jesus’ Deepest Desire. Now, we are speaking entirely inside the topic of Resurrection Life as Life “out from” death, something quite different from Victory “over” death. And we are considering the Glory of the Lord Jesus, the deepest Desire of His Heart, and His greatest achievement.

Jesus is very clear on His deepest Desire, “Father, I DESIRE, that those whom You have given Me might be with Me [here and now – inside of You], that they might behold My Glory” (John 17). What happens to us as we behold His Glory? – We become just like Him. – We know that if He becomes visible [to us], we will be just exactly like Him, because we will be seeing Him as He is (1 John 3:2).

The Eucharist to God. What is the first thing that marks us as being just like Jesus on the inside of us? – We give thanks; we speak good grace; we become, just like Jesus, the Eucharist to God. What does that mean? It means that the Desire of Jesus is now fully ours as well, Jesus in our hearts, Jesus our only Life.

Jesus’ surrender to God in Gethsemane was His willingness to be planted into the earth as His Church, to become each believer through 2000 years of Christian unbelief. When He drank His Father’s cup, as He “rose up from prayer,” He drank you and me into Himself, with all of our sin and shame, our stink and perversity, with all of our hopes and fears, our dreams and agonies, that He might carry each of us all the way through death and into sharing life with God.

The Church as She Is. Now He says to us, inside of us, “Be what I am, just like Me, receive one another in exactly the same way that I received you.” And just as Jesus did, we also drink our Father’s cup. As Jesus said, “I will drink this cup again, when I drink it with you inside of the Kingdom, the Father revealed.”

Let’s get our eyes fixed on the Church as she is right now, all across the earth in every country, in every condition, in every practice and belief. We leave no one out – all who call upon Jesus in some way. We are talking about a billion people, plus or minus. We leave no one out. Jesus received us into Himself when we were raging enemies hating God. We do the same for all fellow believers, whatever their outward state.

The Bottom of the Jordan. I want to take you now to the bottom of the Jordan River, to the lowest place on earth, to four men holding on their shoulders the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat. There those men stood, as the waters of death piled high behind them, holding back that death as every little one of Israel passed through the Jordan into the Promised Land.

They stood there unmoving, faithful and True, being willing to be the last to enter into life, for the sake of everyone, “until all the people had crossed completely,” “until everything was finished” (Joshua 3:17 & 4:10). Salman, prince of Judah and the forefather of Jesus was the first to walk up out of the Jordan, and the priests bearing the Ark, also as Jesus, were the last, the First and the Last.

Life out from Death. This picture is the meaning of LIFE – out from death, Resurrection Life. It is life laid down and love poured out, hearts that will not rest or accept any “reward” until every little one who belongs to Jesus has entered into all the Life of Christ, into Christ Community, into the visible knowledge of God.

We know that in the present season, God receives a tithe to Himself; thus we say, 100 million or more believers in Jesus, all whom the Father has given to Jesus in this hour. What makes the difference? Here are two elderly nuns sitting side by side fingering rosary beads, one says, “Oh Jesus” and remains, the other is taken in pretending. Here are two Pentecostal Holiness preachers, preaching side by side, one says, “Oh, Jesus,” the other is taken in pretending.

Sharing Hheart with God. We exclude none, God alone knows those whom He has given to Jesus. Yet we must make this much more personal.

In my own heart inside of God, I have thought across my life, considering every person with whom I interacted in some way. At the time, there may have been only confusion, hurt, and anger, no matter. It was God my Father who brought each to me for their sake. I have given thanks for each one, regardless, and seized each into my heart to be joined together with God inside of me, completely free of me. And I have covenanted with God, casting my life upon Him, that when He raises me up into life, all whom He has given to me will be with me inside of Jesus.

This is the meaning of LIFE out from death, the very Heart of Jesus, sharing Hheart with God.

The Ekenosis. Here is Paul’s description of the Ekenosis, Philippians 2:5-8. – Let this exact same heart-gut manner of thinking be inside of you that was inside of Christ Jesus, who existing continuously and actively inside of the form of God [that is, all here now and Personal in us], did not hold tightly to the gut assumption of being equal with God. Rather, having already willingly taken hold of the form of a slave, Himself ekenosen, that is, He Himself called an invisible God into visibility, becoming the same as humans. And having been found in outward appearance as a human, He humbled Himself, actively becoming hearing-under all the way to death, even the death of the cross.

Let this same way of thinking and being, be inside of you.

Seeing the Father. “Let it be to me, Lord Jesus, according to Your Word, for You are all that You speak fulfilled now inside of me.” We are the highway prepared for God, as Isaiah spoke, that God might have His way into our world.

Consider God made visible as Jesus – “The one who sees Me, sees the Father.” Consider the man on his knees in Gethsemane, in agony of soul, sweating great drops of blood over the awfulness of carrying you and me inside Himself all the way through death. – You are seeing the Father. Consider the man on his face in the mud under a cross he could not carry, carrying us inside himself all the way through the passage of death. – You are seeing the Father.

God Manifest in the Flesh. Consider a man hanging naked upon the cross in the confusion of his soul, imagining for a brief moment that God had abandoned him, “I am a worm and no man.” – You are seeing the Father.

Consider that man, with all the contempt of Adam filling his soul for all these pretend “believers” prancing against him, hating him for no reason whatsoever, yet saying instead, “Father, forgive them.” And there, offering the confusion of his human soul to God, “God, You ANSWER ME!” Joining you and me with the Father and releasing himself to God. You are seeing God; you are seeing the Father as He is. – Jesus called God out of invisibility to be seen and known through the weakness of human flesh, God manifest in the flesh.

And We Also. By this we have known love, in that Jesus set forth His soul for us, for our sakes, AND WE ALSO are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16). This is My full completion, that you love one another in exactly the same way that I have loved you (John 15:12).

I call upon the Father right now, to be enabled to convey to you, somehow, exactly what God means by coming through us into our world, by giving us His Heart, that we might share Hheart with Him. We are not speaking of “God-Life” in general, but rather of a very specific manifestation of God-Life, Life that comes out from death, carrying us inside of Himself, Resurrection Life.

Because You Have Done This. God is the All-Sustaining One, carrying all inside His own Being. Yet, as strange as it seems, in terms of human time, God has never experienced for Himself living inside a Glorious Church, revealing Himself to all creation as the everlasting expression of Reciprocal Love.

Jesus’ great work, His supreme achievement, is to bring that Church to the Father, but in three passages through death. First, Jesus carried us through that stumbling and agonizing way from Gethsemane to His Resurrection, carrying us, carried by Father, through death and into Life. As Jesus rose from the grave, with us inside of Him, God declared, “Because You have done this, I have exalted Your Name above every other name.”

Just Like Jesus. But even then, Jesus also carried us inside Himself through all the centuries of Christian unbelief and chicanery, stumbling with us through all that way, keeping us inside of God. You see, Jesus continues to reveal the Father, for God is Love, and Love suffers long. Love carries all; Love never ceases.

Then Jesus, through the Word of His Patience, does something even more wondrous. He brings forth many just like Himself, including you and me, who reveal God the Father as Jesus did, now sharing His Heart and desire, now carrying all their Christian brethren across the whole earth and throughout the heavens, inside the agony of their souls, through every stumbling step, carrying them, carried by Father, through death and into Life.

Sharing His Glory. The Ekenosis, calling an invisible God to be seen and known by all through our human flesh, loving one another with pure hearts fervently, the Church, God revealed – and – the Highway for God, our open hearts and open lives, the way for God to come through into His creation, these are two ways of seeing the same thing, that is, Life out from death.

This glory of Jesus shared with us, this name exalted above all, is to be like God, to carry the least and the littlest, through every stumbling step, until they KNOW that they are loved, until they find themselves where they BELONG, at Home inside of God. For here God dwells, here is the Father’s Home, a place made for Him, the revelation of His Glory. – For I will be God inside of you, and you will be a people inside of Me. – Here am I, Father, with all whom You have given to me.

Reading for Next Time. In the next lesson, we will go back to the JS2 as described before, and to completing Lesson 8.3 in Our Glorious Salvation. At that point, we will have just two chapters to complete in Our Glorious Salvation – “11. Rivers of Spirit” and “12. Creation Set Free.” I hope to include just four of those six lessons in the Zoom meetings and thus have the printed draft in my hands well before the end of January.

I would suggest that, through this next week, you would go back through Chapters “9. Knowing One Another” and “10. Resurrection Life.” Listen to the audios, receive all six lessons as one whole. Believe God for the fulfillment of all that He speaks in our lives. Believe God for Christ Community.

Let’s Pray Together. “Oh Father, what can we say except, ‘Let it be to us.’ To know You, to share Your Heart, there is nothing else. Father, we give ourselves to You as a living offering, in full expectation that You are God inside of us. We know that You are just being Yourself through our lives opened to You. We know that it is always You carrying all whom You Love and sharing Your great Joy with us.

“Father, we pause and bring into our minds our fellow believers, both those whom we know and all others across the earth. We think of all who are weary and heavy laden, all who long for Home, for the place where they belong, not knowing where it might be or even that it exists. Father, we hear their hearts and the agony of their souls.

“Father, we know our brothers and sisters, for we have been there as well, in every dark and lonely moment, in every bitterness and agony of soul. Yet in the midst of their confusion, they love Jesus, as we also do. And You hear them, Father, as You always hear us. Father, we are the Ark of Your Presence, Your wide-open door, Your Heart carrying them.

“Lord Jesus, You now live as us, carrying all our brethren inside Your Heart inside of us, even as You with us give ourselves to the Father. Lord Jesus, even as we share every moment of Your suffering, so we share Your Great Glory, a Church filled with God, a Home for Father. Let it be so, Lord Jesus, it is so.”