#42.

The Lord's Supper Corrects our Perspective on the Past

Hebrews 12:14 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us
also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with
endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of
faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by
sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4 You have not yet
resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
We are looking at the way in which our participation in the Lord's Supper can restore a right
perspective for us, and in this meditation we want to see how it can help us to look back upon the
past and have our hindsight corrected.
We have already reflected on the fact that Christ commands us to take the Supper in
remembrance of Him, but this devotional expands upon that idea. Consider what the writer to the
Hebrews says in the passage above. There is no better place for us to fix our eyes on Jesus than
at the Table, where through the eyes of faith we see Him enduring the cross and despising the
shame for us. No better place to reflect on the hostility he endured from sinners against Himself,
though He had done no sin. Well then, says the writer - if you dwell on these things you will not
grow weary and lose heart in your own much less intense struggles with sin.
How often do we reach a point in the Christian life when we feel unworthy of our Lord, and are
tempted to throw in the towel? How often does our spiritual warfare as believers seem like more
than we can bear and we want to desert the battle ground? Jesus understands these things and
here we are told that it will help us enormously if we spend time thinking about what He
endured, so we can gain a better perspective on our own sufferings and avoid losing heart. Surely
there cannot be a better place than the Table to meditate on what He endured, so here we can get
our perspective on our current situation sorted out by remembering all that Jesus went through to
be our Savior.
But there is another way in which the Table can help us with our hindsight. We are inclined to
forget what we were like without Christ - the mess that He pulled us out of. Our past lives
disappear into a convenient fog and we start to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to
think. Pride elevates our standing in our own eyes so we begin to believe we are not so bad after
all, and our sins are not so serious. Then we come to the Table and the fog blows away. We
were so bad that our only hope of salvation was for Christ to die on the cross for us. We
remember again the horror of what happened at Calvary - the blood of God's precious Son
flowing plentifully, the darkness that came over the land, the desertion by the Father of His
beloved Son, the loud cries of Jesus in anguish and then in triumph and we we realize that this
was for us, or more personally, it was for me. It was my sin that made this necessary if I was
ever to be saved. So the Table provides a much needed corrective, humbling us to the dust and
reminding us that without Jesus we are nothing and we can do nothing.
We need our perspective to be adjusted regularly and the Table is one great place that God has

provided to perform that operation in our hearts - another compelling reason to come to the Table
of our Lord!
www.gcmodesto.org