Guests at the Lord's table

[AI translation] As you can see, the Lord's table is set here before us for a feast. We are not here together in an ordinary service, but in a special service, a most solemn service: that is, our heavenly Host is waiting for us at His table. But why do we need to take communion again? After all, it is only recently Christmas, and then the last night of the New Year, and it is not even a month since we last came to this table! Do we not diminish the solemnity of these holy occasions by making participation in them so frequent? After all, it is so seldom that we are able to come to this table with a truly serious spiritual feeling! And add to this the Apostle Paul's admonition, "Let a man therefore try to ... For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself" (vv. 28-29) - almost makes us shy away, and makes us feel that we need a much more thorough spiritual preparation than we have here! Well, then, let us have almost a soul-searching hour now, and examine ourselves, can we now be again guests at our Lord's holy table, the heavenly banquet?Yes, let us begin with this solemn warning. I can imagine that this scares many people away from the Lord's Supper. Because many believers think: "Of course I'm unworthy, but then I can't go, and even if I do anything, I can't be worthy to sit down with Jesus with a clear conscience! But let us listen carefully to this word: it is not unworthy, but unworthily! Unworthy means unworthy, not having the right to come to that table. But unworthy: means that one does not carry himself in a worthy manner, so it is not his person that is unworthy, but his conduct, his attitude towards the body and blood of the Lord. Our person is unworthy, we are all unworthy of the great honour of being the Lord's guests. There is no doubt about it. If a man waited to be worthy of it, he could wait the rest of his life and never come! But it is not a question of my being worthy of the Lord's Supper, because I am a very sinful person. I must first be cleansed, I must first get on in holy living, so that I can be worthy in some way of this hospitality. I would rather not go now, lest I sin against the body and blood of the Lord!
Well, Paul is not talking here about people who, despite being unworthy, come to the Lord's table - for Jesus invited all such people to His hospitality, unworthy people - but about people who are already sitting at that table but who are not behaving in a manner worthy of the Lord's Supper, that is, who are not aware of the significance of the Lord's broken body and shed blood.
"Let a man therefore try himself, and so eat ... and so drink ..." (v. 28) Let him try himself: it does not mean, "Now I will try whether I can be worthy. I will try not to sin for a week or a few days before communion, I will try to live purely according to God's will, and if I succeed to some extent I am worthy, if I fail I am unworthy. As someone said to me just now, I am sorry I cannot take communion because I have been very upset this week and I have cursed myself badly. Well, that's not it. It's about examining oneself, an inner spiritual introspection: am I really going there as Jesus is waiting for me at His table? Am I going there for what He wants to give me there? Do I really want what He wants to strengthen me for with the food I receive there? I must therefore try myself in three things, that I may not come unworthily.
1) The first: do I know my sins, do I know my own sin-infested nature? Many of you read a few decades ago that great book called "For Sinners Only". I have said it before, but let me say it again: here, above the Lord's Table, I always seem to see this inscription: "Sinners only!" The invitation to this table is for sinners only! Only sinners can be guests at this table! Just as one does not go to the doctor because one is swollen with fresh, good health, has no complaints, but precisely because there is something wrong, something hurts somewhere, something is not right, something is ailing! In the same way, we come to the Lord's table because something is wrong, something is ailing somewhere! Coming to the Lord's table is not a declaration of how perfect I am! But on the contrary: look how far I am from perfection, from the great faith, from the life that pleases God! Somewhere in my life there is trouble, great trouble, and trouble so fatally great that I cannot be helped except by the breaking of that holy body and the shedding of its blood. It is always here, at the Lord's table, that I truly see what a great and fatal evil that particular sin is, as I hold the bread and wine in my hands, the words of Jesus ringing in my ears: 'This is my body which shall be broken for your sins' (v. 24), this is my blood which shall be shed for your sins. It is as if Jesus himself began to speak to me in the bread and wine: 'See how terrible is the punishment of the sin that is in you: my flesh is broken for it, my blood is shed for it! Yes: it is by the greatness of the punishment that we can truly see the greatness of our sins!
So if you accept this in faith, if you can say with sorrowful repentance: Yes, Lord, I am so wretched that you had to suffer that horrible death on the cross because of me and for me! The more unworthy you feel, the more worthy you are.
2) The second thing I need to test myself on is. What happens in the Lord's Supper is that Jesus not only says it, but also gives a visible and tangible witness to His real presence. This is my body, this is my blood, He says of this bread and wine on the table, and in doing so He is saying, 'See, I am here, I am present, I am where you are in time and space! As natural and real as this bread and wine that you can take in your hand!
Of course, He is also present at other times for those who believe in Him, but somehow Communion makes our faith more present to us, to make us realize, almost to grasp His presence. Here we can experience personal encounter and communion with Jesus more grippingly and with even more vivid certainty than at other times. So when you come here, open your spiritual eyes wide and see Jesus sitting at this table, as real as He was at the Last Supper. He offers you the bread and wine, and He says: "Eat, eat, this is my body; drink, this is my blood. This bread and wine is true, it is real bread and wine, but it is no ordinary bread and wine. Just as a hundred-franc note is real paper, but not ordinary paper. Somewhere in a cellar of the National Bank, it has a gold backing, worth a hundred forints of gold! The bread and wine of the Last Supper also has a backing: the broken body and shed blood of Jesus on Calvary, as the redemptive death of Jesus!
So: just as surely as you see that bread broken and that wine poured into the cup, just as surely as you see the body and blood of Jesus broken and poured out for the full atonement for your sins. The mystery of forgiveness of sins, of redemption, of the certainty of eternal life, is here in your hand, a tangible reality for you to grasp. You can physically grasp the blessed assurance that you are a redeemed child of God, and it is as real as you are standing here at this table. Yes, you are, a child of God, through Jesus, Who earned that opportunity for you there on Calvary! Is it not certain, is it not true - for you can sense it - that you have the bread and the wine in your mouth, you can taste it. Well then, it is equally certain, true, that Jesus has redeemed you too, you are His. It is as if he touched you with his hand, as he once touched the leper, and from that touch you are cleansed, like the leper! This assurance of salvation is what the Lord wants to give you at His table - and if you come for that now, you are a welcome guest at this supper!
3) And thirdly, what I need to test myself on is, do I have the willingness to sincerely thank Him for all this? What is your intention after this? Do you want to pick up where you left off before the communion? Are you ready to come to terms with all the sins that God has shown in you and forgiven you for the sake of Jesus? Because the gratitude we are talking about here is not just a certain spiritual feeling, but an attitude, a life, manifested in deeds! And a life conformed to God's will. Giving thanks for grace is not done in words, but by walking before God. Walking before God means knowing that the eyes of the Lord are always on me, and that is why I now seek to place all my actions under His guidance. It does not mean that those who have taken communion no longer sin, no longer fall into sin. It is one thing to fall into sin and another to remain in sin. A redeemed, forgiven man will always fall into sin again, but he will also repent and come to Jesus Christ again for forgiveness. But to remain in sin means to be comfortable in it, or to be reconciled to it, not to fight it, to tolerate it, and so certain vices are almost part of our lives, so that we do not want to get rid of them. That is when one eats that bread and drinks that wine unworthily! Unworthily, that is, not with the firm intention of wanting to purify himself.
But it is precisely this cleansing that Jesus wants to help with the Lord's Supper! He knows very well why He wants to come to us and help us, not only with a living word, but also in such a realistic way, with such visible signs. Let each one of us think now of that dark spot in his or her life where there is something wrong, where there is a "pinch", where there is pain, because we all have such a painful spot in our lives. Perhaps it is a suffering you cannot come to terms with; or a problem you cannot get rid of; a sin you struggle against in vain; or perhaps a bitter why you cannot solve. Well then, here is the Lord at His table, here is the time to get up from our seats, to come close to Him, to reach out to Him, and to be convinced anew by the marks of flesh and blood that Jesus is indeed our God of salvation! There is no suffering that He has not already borne. There is no trouble that He has not taken upon Himself. There is no sin that His blood cannot cleanse us from. There is no why that He cannot give comfort. There is no death from which He cannot deliver!
With all that hurts, distresses, anguishes, there is someone to turn to, for we have a living Saviour, and He is here now, and He is here to give Himself: to pour into our bodies, into our souls, His redeeming power, and we can take Him with us, in us, out of the temple, out into life, into the world from whence we came! We can take it with us as we take bread and wine from this table. Can this be repeated often enough? Do you not feel what a great grace it is to be a guest of the Lord at His table again today?
Everyone is a welcome guest at this table today who longs in his heart to hear Jesus say this to him again now: I am all yours!" and who in turn is ready to say with all his heart, "I am all yours, Lord Jesus!
Amen
Date: 28 January 1968.