My dear flock,
Visualize what our Lord is saying. A worshiper stands at the altar. Gift in hand. Everything appears to be as it should, until the conscience speaks: Thy brother hath ought against thee.
Jesus will not allow him to ignore that voice. Worship must wait. A gift cannot cover over the duties of love. The Lord who sees the offering, also sees the injury.
“Leave there thy gift.”
Why not, “take back thy gift, go, and be reconciled”? Because a left gift leaves an eye to the Lord’s worship. Reconciliation is part of worship. It belongs among the first principles of it. Our Lord will not let us draw near, while maintaining a breach. A gift, a prayer, a psalm, a tear, none can drown out the accusing, wounded conscience. We must go.
Undealt-with sin against someone must be dealt with plainly, without excuses or explanation. Reconciliation can’t always be achieved, because the other heart remains closed. May the Spirit open it. Yet the disciple of Christ must be able to say that he pursued it willingly, humbly, as far as it lay within him.
Let this search you before Holy Supper. Every communicant that attends the table confesses, that they have ended, “unfeignedly all enmity, hatred, and envy, and doth firmly resolve henceforward to walk in true love and peace with his neighbor” (Form for the Lord’s Supper). Our whole hope, dear one, rests upon reconciliation. Jesus would not leave the breach unhealed. He came down to earth to bear our guilt, shed His blood, and make peace through His cross. Those who live by such mercy, how can they comfortably cherish enmity?
Leave your gift and go. Speak truth; confess the wrong. And if you are on the receiving end, forgive as you have freely been forgiven. Both return to the altar with a refocused heart, take up thy gift, and find fresh worship. How much did our own reconciliation with God cost our Savior?
Your friend and pastor,
J. Lewis