You are a child of God. In your baptism, God looked at you and said, “This is my child.” In that “washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5), you received the forgiveness of all your sins, you were united to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and you were sealed by the Holy Spirit. All of this is the inheritance granted to you in your adoption there in the water. Child of God, this is true of you.
But some days we forget. Sometimes–as children are prone to do–we fall down. There are weeks where we do or say things we shouldn’t. We get tired. We feel empty. We need forgiveness. But the Father isn’t complacent. Neither is He absent. Instead He says to you: “Come to my Table.”
The table is the place where our Father gives us the Lord’s Supper. God’s grace given to you in, with, and under physical means: a meal. And this meal is exactly what Jesus declares it to be: Jesus’ own true body and blood given and shed for
you for the forgiveness of your sins. This, Supper, this Communion, this Sacrament, is what God gives to His children to forgive, sustain, comfort, and strengthen them. Jesus meets you in the midst of your real tiredness, your real struggles, and your real sins with real forgiveness, real life, and real salvation. He speaks a promise that He gives Himself to us truly under the bread and wine.
And Jesus doesn’t lie. His word is truth, and His word declares:
In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, and gave thanks; broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: “Take and eat; this is my body, given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.”
Again after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it for all to drink, saying “This cup is the new testament in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. Do this for the remembrance of me.”
Your Father beckons you to come to His table to receive all that you need: forgiveness for yesterday, comfort for today, strength for tomorrow, and assurance of all that is yours in Christ. When you struggle, when you fall, when you forget who you are, come to your Father’s table and receive the promise: you are forgiven, you are loved, you are a child of God.
