He was Broken for the Broken

Perspective is sometimes everything. After serving as a pastor for nearly ten years I am accustomed to observing the Lord's Supper from the front of the church. From that vantage point I would often watch our deacons as they distributed the bread and the juice. I would watch the trays and the plates and be on guard that there was enough for everyone. Though I sought to have my mind and heart turned toward the Lord and His sacrifice, many times my attention would be captured by the "doing" of the Lord's Supper as I served.

I have taken part in the Lord's Supper several times since leaving the pastorate. But today something was different. I am not sure if it was because we were in a French speaking church where, at our language capacity, it is easy to be distracted. Or maybe this morning I was a bit more tired than usual due to the time change. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe this morning the Lord chose to open my eyes to something I have never noticed at the Lord's Supper.

This morning as the bread and the juice were making the rounds I noticed all of the people there and began to think about them. I noticed the distracted mother in front of me who kept rubbing her brow as if she had a headache as she tried to keep the little one on her lap still. I saw the man to my left on our row who passed the elements to Ezra without taking any because he is an agnostic and is not sure that Christianity is real. I heard the coughing man behind us, the one who probably should have stayed home this morning, and was reminded of how miserable it is to feel like that. The group of teenagers three rows back who whispered to one another as the music played. And I looked around the room, glancing at the faces of the people there, and I wondered about  their struggles and fears and hang-ups and sins. All the while I held a piece of unleavened bread in my hand that represented the broken body of our Lord.

Now I know that the Lord's Supper is about Jesus and not about us. And as a pastor I have said in the past that the Lord's  Supper is not the time or  the place to be concerned about what others are doing. But today it was in the seeing of others that I saw something beautiful about the Lord. His body was broken and his blood was shed for broken people like these. Distracted people. Hurting people. Confused people. Weak and frail and fragile and needy people. He was broken for the broken. He came not for the healthy, but for  the sick.

And as I sat there, a broken and sick person surrounded by other broken and sick people, I was reminded of the beauty of the Gospel. Jesus was broken for broken people like us. Then I ate the bread and I drank the juice and I thanked God for a Savior like that. Sometimes perspective is everything.