We enjoyed a wonderful worship service last evening with about sixty inmates at the prison. Being holy week, we remembered the Lord's sacrificial death and glorious resurrection as we shared together in taking the Lord's Supper.
As I prepared the communion table earlier in the afternoon an inmate came by to see me. When he saw the communion elements, he got very quiet and sort of introspective. I asked what was wrong. He said, "I always have a hard time about communion. Chaplain, I don't ever think I'm worthy to take it." My quick response was, "You're not!" Then I explained myself.
None of us is worthy. We all carry the stench of our own sinfulness. That makes us totally unworthy.
That's why the cross is so very vital. That's why the shed blood of our Passover Lamb must be applied to the doorposts of our lives. The blood applied says to God, "I deserve death, but I trust You for life." It's the application of that blood that makes the most vile, the most unworthy among us to be acceptable to God.
It's only by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross that we are made worthy to partake. It was that realization that drove us last night. That in and of itself gave a bunch of hardened convicts, stained by their own vileness in the eyes of the world, reason to worship like you'll never experience in most churches. It was my privilege to be there among them.
"For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
~ Hebrews 9:13
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