We have urged you many times not to use this glorious occasion as a time for confessing your sins. We have a time for that set apart at the beginning of the service, which only makes sense. You wash your hands, and then you come to the dinner table. This is a place for laughter, fellowship and food, not desperate introspection.
But this presupposes that the sin you are confessing at the beginning of the service is really dealt with—that it is not an on-going issue. Now there are different ways sin could be an on-going issue. I am not speaking here of any sins of high defiance, sin you are continuing, and are refusing to let go of, the sins of a hypocrite.
No, I am speaking of a trouble in the conscience, a sin you committed two years ago, and one you have probably confessed a thousand times. You are not still committing it, but you are afraid to get help for your conscience. You are afraid to tell your parents, or your spouse, or the pastor, because then the matter would be taken out of your hands, and the consequences you fear would probably come upon you.
You are not defiant, but you are stuck. You have trouble coming to this Table with rejoicing because all you can think about is that lie you told, or your lost virginity, or the abortion fifteen years ago you never told anyone about. Now again, I am not talking about a sin that you are still clinging to, but rather a sin you abandoned some time ago, but which is still clinging to you.
If you are in this position, should you be coming to this Table? You have been coming, because if you refrained, someone would ask you why, and you are afraid of the consequences of telling. In one sense you are afraid of the relief that would follow. So what should you do if you are in this position?
You are still welcome to come to this Table, and to partake fully, but with one provision. As you come, you must pray that God be using this Supper as a provision of His grace to strengthen you to do—and soon—what you know you need to do. Confessing sin this way is always a little like cliff diving. You can even know that you are going to do it, but you need to fidget on the edge just a bit more.
If you come to commune this way, you are not being a hypocrite. But you are weak, and you need to know you are coming to a Table of Strength.