We have said many times that the structure of a covenant renewal worship service is built around the pattern set by the sacrifices of the Old Testament. Our corporate confession of sin corresponds to the guilt offering, fulfilled in the death of Jesus. Our psalm singing and listening to Scripture read, and hearing the sermon, all correspond to the ascension offering—sometimes called the whole burnt offering. This is an offering of consecration, with the entire animal ascending to heaven in the smoke. And then our service culminates in the Lord’s Supper, which corresponds to the peace offering, where the worshipper sits down and shares a meal with his God.
So we have come to the peace offering. God meets with us, receives us, and accepts us. We have emphasized in past years that God does receive you here, despite your sins, because you have confessed them and you acknowledge them to be sins. This meal is like the peace offering; it is not an awards banquet. We have emphasized this because in conservative, evangelical and Reformed circles, far too many Christians have used this as an occasion for beating themselves up. But this is not the part of the worship service that is designed for self-accusation. Confess your sins at the beginning of the service, and sit down at this table with joy. Wash your hands and then come to dinner.
But we do not emphasize this because other abuses are impossible. We just want to deal with our characteristic abuses first. There are those who want to keep the Supper and their sins. On the morning of the infamous golden calf incident, what did the people begin with? “And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Ex. 32:6).
So of course that is not the way. Don’t be dancing around the golden calf while calling it a festival to YHWH. In a congregation this size, there are some doing just that. But in our circles, we are far more likely to be distracted from true communion with the Lord because we are furtively looking for subatomic golden calves that we know are residing in our hearts. Don’t be doing that either.