Receive Mercy and Learn Mercy

In our sermon text this morning, Jesus is portrayed as “sitting at table” with tax-collectors and sinners.  This is something we see all over the Gospels: the coming of Jesus means party time!  This was the chief complaint of the Pharisees:  First, that Jesus came “eating and drinking”, and second, that he came eating and drinking with “tax collectors, sinners, Gentiles, and prostitutes.”  Jesus’ reply: “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are ill…I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners”.  

This is instructive for us, for though the bridegroom has been “taken away” we continue to feast with him on the Lord’s Day.  He still sits at table with sinners.  This means that in one sense we don’t come to this feast out of a sense of “right”, but because he has mercifully called us.  But in this meal, our Great Physician feeds us—with bread and wine, and with his presence, too, that we who are ill in every way—we who still carry with us the burden of the old man, our first father Adam, may be healed and strengthened to put him off more and more and be clothed in Jesus Christ, becoming more and more like him.  Come and touch the hem of his garment by faith, and be made well.

Behold the mercy of the Lord!  Learn from this kind token of mercy, how to show mercy to others, as well.  For you a great debt has been forgiven, and on you a great gift has been bestowed—an invitation to fellowship with the King.  Come and sit at table with him, and as you rejoice and rest in his presence, be made like him, merciful, showing compassion.  For we were formerly like sheep without a shepherd, but now we are being equipped with everything good for doing his will by the Great Shepherd of the Sheep, who rose from the dead through the blood of the eternal covenant.

This is the Lord’s Table…