“A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory” (Matthew 12:20).
“Pastor, I think I should stay away this time.”
My dear congregation,
I have heard those words, or something very much like them, more than once during a communion week. Sometimes they come from the very person I would least expect, a faithful member who is in church every Sabbath, attends the prayer meetings, and takes his place among the congregation without drawing attention to himself. The sort of person you would gladly nominate for office, or teach our children.
And there he sits, troubled about coming to the Lord’s Table.
Something has happened, and I may not know what. This season has uncovered something within, or perhaps he has simply been brought to see more clearly how much sin remains within. Now he sits before me, wondering whether he has any business sitting at the Table.
I suspect more than a few of you understand this difficult place.
There have been communion seasons when you came with a measure of liberty. You had a fresh glimpse of Christ, rejoiced in His promises, receiving bread and wine with a thankful heart. But this time things are different. You have seen something more of yourself, and you are ashamed.
What are you to do?
Our Heidelberg Catechism addresses this very question in Lord’s Day 30, Question 81: “For whom is the Lord’s supper instituted?” The answer begins, “For those who are truly sorrowful for their sins.”
Our Instructor begins with sorrow for sin, a very good place to start. Then he speaks of those who trust that their sins are forgiven them for Christ’s sake, and that their remaining infirmities are covered by His passion and death, and of those who earnestly desire to have their faith strengthened and their lives made more holy.
So the one who comes to the Table still has sins to mourn over. He has infirmities that still need to be covered. His faith still needs strengthening, and his life still needs greater holiness. The Catechism assumes that these things are still true of the believer.
But a difference needs to be made here. There is such a thing as sorrow for sin that has no evangelical root.
Judas was grieved. Scripture tells us that he “repented himself” (Matthew 27:3). Esau wept bitterly over what he had lost, yet he “found no place of repentance” (Hebrews 12:17).
So it is possible to bitterly regret sin, even to dread God’s judgment, while having no desire to part with the thing itself. We should never confuse this kind sorrow with gospel repentance. Paul makes the distinction in 2 Corinthians 7:10: “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”
There are souls who can sit under a preparatory sermon, eyes welling with tears, and upon returning home, take up the very sins they wept over. They have learned to live with things that ought to disturb the peace of Mansoul.
If that’s you, I must warn you against coming to the Lord’s Table. You have made peace with what Christ died to destroy. The Lord calls you to repent.
Its just here where splitting hairs becomes delicate. A tender conscience hears this and immediately bars his own heart.
“I think that describes me. I have confessed so many times. I have prayed against it and promised a change. Yet here I am, wrestling with the same corruption. What does that say about me?”
Well, let me ask you something. What troubles you most about that sin?
Is it only that you have broken God’s holy law and failed in self-improvement? Or is there something deeper? Does it grieve you that you have sinned against such love, such mercy? Do you hate the sin, even while you find (to your shame), that it still has a dreadful hold on you?
And where do you go with it? Do you return to the risen Christ, confessing your sin and pleading for power to kill it? Or do you try to mortify it yourself first? Victory may come for a season, but how do you know it will even last?
There is a world of difference between a soul who secretly intends to keep sin, and a soul who longs to be rid of it, though he has discovered how weak he is.
The apostle Paul knew something of this. Hear his painful confession: “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Romans 7:19). Then comes his cry: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Paul asks who, because his help is a Person, and the answer comes in the very next breath: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Dear congregation, I wonder whether we sometimes spend so much time examining the sincerity of our sorrow that we have no time left to look at the Man of Sorrows, and why He is called such. Christ was the Man of Sorrows because He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:3–4). Even the sorrow of weak repentance.
We examine our examinations, and then examine them again. We ask whether we have grieved deeply enough, whether we have enough hatred of (or victory over) our sin, whether our desires are pure, holy enough, earnest enough. And where does that leave us? It leaves us staring blankly at ourselves.
Now, self-examination is scriptural, and we must never be those who dismiss it. But there is a danger in adding qualifications that Scripture itself has never imposed, and then condemning ourselves because we can’t meet them.
Suppose you discovered that your repentance was more sincere than you had thought. Would that make you worthy? And if, the day after the Lord’s Supper, you discovered some new and dreadful corruption that escaped your eye the day before, would Christ be less sufficient?
Our repentance has never paid for access. Even our best repentance needs the blood-washing of Christ.
Dear one, “A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory” (Matthew 12:20). Richard Sibbes wrote a whole book on this verse, The Bruised Reed, and in it he says, “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”
How encouraging this is for the weak. The reed already bruised, and the wick hardly burning need no more grief. Jesus knows what He is doing. He knows the delicateness of His own work in us, and He will not deal roughly with what His own grace has begun. The verse ends, “till he send forth judgment unto victory.” That is a promise of final triumph! The smoking flax will not remain forever in its present condition. He will bind up the brokenhearted. He will finish what He has begun.
Perhaps you look at your faith and see so much unbelief mingled in. But tell me, what did that woman in Matthew 9 possess when she came through the crowd to touch the hem of Christ’s garment? She had twelve years of misery behind her, and just enough crawling faith to come to Jesus.
And what did He call her? “Daughter.” What a comforting word that must have been to her!
This is exactly why the Lord instituted His Supper. He knows our weakness. He knows how easily we doubt His Word, how slowly we believe, and how quickly our hearts flutter and float back to Egypt. So He has appointed this ordinance for the strengthening of our faith. He gives us bread and wine, visible culinary signs and seals of His crucified body and shed blood, to assure His believing people of their participation in Him and all His benefits. He would have us look again to the sacrifice that has fully satisfied divine justice, and to the resurrection that proved Him Faithful and True.
Remember, too, that when you made public confession of faith, you confessed your dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps you understood that dependence less deeply then than you do now. That is progress.
Have you recently discovered things about your heart that have humbled you terribly? Have you learned how little strength you have? Have there even been times when you wondered how a child of God could think the thoughts you think, or struggle as you do? Welcome to the warfare.
Do not make peace with those sins. Fight them by confessing them. Seek their mortification by the Spirit, walking in obedience to His Word. And in that very warfare, never cease hungering and thirsting more after His righteousness.
If you are troubled about coming, please speak to one of your elders, or to me. I would gladly sit with you on a Thursday evening and talk about our souls. These things are too important to leave a troubled reed blowing in the wind.
Nothing you find about yourself this week has surprised Him. He knew the whole of your sin before you were even born, when He bore their curse upon the cross, and He knows every stubborn infirmity that remains.
So, dear trembling soul, come confessing your sin and trusting His righteousness, longing to be made holy. Come hungry, and receive what the Lord has appointed for the nourishment of His people.
There is room at His Table for the bruised reed and the smoking flax. That’s who many come.
Your friend and pastor,
J Lewis