Identification
Originally scheduled for
July 24
Have you ever
rummaged through your desk drawer, looking for something or other,
and found an old ID card? It can be a humorous experience. You look
at that picture, and then you realize that's what you look like way
back when. If you're old enough, there is one thing which is
certain: you could never use that ID again.
But you are still
you, right? You're still the same person that's in that ID card, or
so you think. We tend to see ourselves as unchanging; that's normal
— we live with ourselves every day and we see only the daily
changes. The daily changes are so small. So from one decade to the
next, we don't think of ourselves as having changed. But you have to
ask: what were you doing with that hairstyle?
You have changed, of
course. For most of us that means we have grown. There is an obvious
sense to that; most of us have a few more pounds now than we did
when that picture was taken. But we might also take into account
some other things which changed.
·
One thing is our
experience. This isn't always some great and dramatic change — in
fact, it's usually the slow accretion of experience that makes the
changes in us. We become more capable.
·
If we follow those
things a Christian should seek, we should also gain in wisdom. This
might not be obvious until you think back to some of the foolish
things you did when you were younger. We laugh about such things –
but we also learn from them.
It happens, however,
that some of us don't bring those changes with us to the Lord's
table. We approach communion just like we always have; we have the
same little prayer that we recite in our heads. We sit in the same
pew; we use the same hand to reach for the tray. It's like a little
ritual. We do this without thinking. Let me encourage you this
morning to think.
You have grown; you
have new experiences and more wisdom. Bring that wisdom and such
experience to the Lord's table with you. Hold it up to his light;
bring him the "you" that exists now, not the one he knew 25 years
ago.
May be the real
"you" that meets the real Christ.
