March 2017 Communion Meditation

GREIVING OVER OUR SINS THAT CRUCIFIED CHRIST
By Matthew Henry, “Communicant’s Companion” (pp. 199-203)

In this sacrament, where it is designed that the eye should affect the heart, we must not rest in the bare contemplation of what is here set before us, but the consideration thereof must make an impression upon our spirits, which should be turned as wax to the seal. If what is here done does not affect us for the present, it is not likely to influence us afterwards; for we retain the remembrance of things better by our affections, than by our notions: ‘I shall never forget Thy precepts, when by them Thou hast quickened me.’ Here, therefore, let us stir up the gift that is in us, endeavoring to affect ourselves with the great things of God and our souls; and let us pray to God to affect us with them by His Spirit and grace.

Here we must be sorrowful for sin, after a godly sort, and blushing before God at the thought of it. Penitential grief and shame are not at all unsuitable to this ordinance, though it is intended for our joy and honour, but excellent preparatives for the benefit and comfort of it. Here we should be, like Ephraim, bemoaning ourselves; like Job, abhorring ourselves, renewing those sorrowful reflections we made upon our own follies, when we were preparing for this service, and keeping the fountain of repentance still open, still flowing. Our sorrow for sin needs not hinder our joy in God, and therefore our joy in God must not forbid our sorrow for sin.

I am here drawing nigh to God, not only treading His courts with Christians at large, but sitting down at His Table with select disciples; but when I consider how pure and holy He is, and how vile and sinful I am, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face before Him. To me belongs shame and confusion of face. I have many a time heard of God by the hearing of the ear, but now I am taken to sit down with Him at His Table. Mine eyes see Him, see the King in His beauty; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes —What a fool, what a wretch have I been, to offend a God who appears so holy in the eyes of all who draw nigh unto Him, and so great to all them that are about Him? Woe is me, for I am undone, lost and undone forever, if there were not a Mediator between me and God, because I am a man of unclean lips and an unclean heart. Now I perceive it, and my own degeneracy and danger by reason of it, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. I have reason to be ashamed to see One to whom I am so unlike, and afraid to see One to whom I am so obnoxious. The higher we are advanced by the free grace of God, the more reason we shall see to abase ourselves, and cry, ‘God be merciful to us, sinners!’

A sight of Christ crucified should increase, excite our penitential shame and sorrow, and that evangelical repentance, in which there is an eye to the cross of Christ. It is prophesied, nay, it is promised, as a blessed effect of the pouring out of the Spirit, in gospel times, ‘upon the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that they shall look on him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him [Zech. 12:10].’ Here we see Christ pierced for our sins, nay, pierced by our sins: our sins were the cause of His death, and the grief of His heart. The Jews and Romans crucified Christ; but, as David killed Uriah with his letter, and Ahab killed Naboth with his seal, so the hand-writing that was against us for our sins, nailed Christ to the cross, and so he nailed it to the cross. We had eaten the sour grapes, and His teeth were set on edge. Can we see Him thus suffering for us, and shall we not suffer with Him? Was He in such pain for us, and shall not we be in pain for Him? Was His soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, and shall not ours be exceeding sorrowful, when that is the way to life? Come, my soul, see by faith the holy Jesus made sin for thee; the glory of heaven made a reproach of men for thee; His Father’s joy made a ‘Man of Sorrow’ for thy transgressions.

Can we look upon a humbled, broken Christ, with an unhumbled, unbroken heart? Do our sins grieve Him, and shall they not grieve us? Come, my soul, and sit down by the cross of Christ, as a true mourner; let it make thee weep to see Him weep and bleed to see Him bleed. That heart is frozen hard indeed, which these considerations will not thaw. The gracious offer here made us, of peace and pardon, should excite and increase our godly sorrow and shame. This is a gospel motive; ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;’ that is, the promise of pardon upon repentance is published and sealed, and whoever will, may come and take the benefit of it.