When we partake of the Supper we should pay close attention to the obvious. Stick with me here, this is a table with a meal spread upon it. There’s a tendency in our evangelical piety to, in practice, completely overlook this glaringly obvious aspect of what we do.
Amongst our Evangelical ranks there are some who––in an effort to obey the call to “examine yourself†& to “worthily take the Supperâ€â€“–have done some renovations to the furniture of this sacrament. They put the command to examine oneself into practice by acting as if the Lord’s Supper is like a crust of bread being slid under the cell door to a prisoner in solitary confinement. Instead of a table around which God’s elect children gather to commune with Him and each other, they turn this into an icy corridor of 6×6 cells of introspective piety.
The Lord summons us here to a joyful feast with more than plenty for all who He calls. He doesn’t send us to our rooms to think long & hard about how badly we’ve behaved and only get dinner if we are able to attain the properly morose disposition. Our Father wants us to pull in our seats around this table, facing Him and each other, to enjoy the manifold ways He has brought us, saved us, sustained us, and nourished us.
With beaming faces we fellowship around this table, reflecting Christ’s light back to Him in praise and towards each other in faithful encouragement. Introspection, however, thinks that the proper thing to look at during the Lord’s Supper is the blank cement of the walls of our atrophied pietism.
In faith, we look at Christ as we look at this bread & wine. In faith, we look at each other and see Christ’s bride.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
