Dear Family at CCC,

This Sunday we will have the opportunity to partake of the Lord’s Table as we continue in our sermon series in the Gospel of Mark by hearing from Mark 2:1-12. In this passage, we will consider Jesus’s authority and willingness to forgive sins. This authority is scandalous to those who, like the scribes of Jesus’s day, remain in unbelief concerning Jesus and His identity as the Son of God. But this authority is wonderful and amazing to those who turn to Jesus in simple faith, believing that He is willing and able to grant the forgiveness that we all need.

The Lord’s Table is a visible lesson to us of Jesus’s authority and willingness to forgive us our sins. The broken bread and poured out cup signify and seal upon our hearts the reality that Jesus has purchased our forgiveness by His broken body and shed blood. Though our hearts are often doubting and fearful of this truth, the Table is given to us so that we may grow in trusting and believing in Jesus and what He has done for us. So, although we need faith in Jesus to approach and benefit from the Table, just as much as this we need the Table to increase and nourish our faith in Him.

In his book on the Theology of Mark’s Gospel, David Garland highlights the simple element of faith that is emphasized in Mark 2:1-12:

“The scandalized question of the teachers of the law, ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ (2:7), scores the point. Jesus not only has divine power to read their minds and to heal a paralytic, but He has divine authority here and now to pronounce the forgiveness for sins that anyone might commit against God. What is more, those who are forgiven do not need to go through the prescribed channels of the temple sacrificial cult or to give prerequisite evidence of their repentance. They need only exhibit faith in Him.”

Given this, as you prepare to partake of the Table this Sunday, ask the Lord to increase your faith in Jesus through this means of grace. Ask the Holy Spirit to clear away your doubts about Jesus’s love for you and to increase your assurance of forgiveness in Him. May the Lord unite our hearts to His through our growing faith in Him!

In Christ,
Robby