As the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization came to an end last week, we celebrated the Lord’s Supper as a global church of over 5,000 delegates from 200+ countries. We held in our hands the symbols of our broken and beautiful Savior who gave Himself for us, the One who is our only hope in life and death.
This Sunday, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper at The Moody Church as we look to the broken and beautiful Christ who laid down His life for our salvation. His broken body has become beautiful by His grace. The sufferings of Good Friday have turned to the glories of Resurrection Sunday. When we gather in remembrance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we gather around His broken beauty.
Look a little deeper and you will find gathering around the table a family also marked by brokenness and beauty. The church is the broken and beautiful people of God, gathered in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Spirit. We bear the scars of a sin-cursed world. We are battered and bruised. We suffer for the sake of Jesus’ name. And yet there is beauty here too. We find the wonder of transforming grace, the fruit of the Spirit beginning to grow, the image of Christ taking form in our midst. When we gather at the table, we come as the broken and beautiful bride of Christ.
That’s the story of the church: We are a broken and beautiful bride, redeemed by a broken and beautiful Savior, journeying through a broken and beautiful world.
I’m reminded of the apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:7–10, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
God uses our weakness to show Himself strong. His grace is sufficient. Jesus is building His church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). We are His broken and beautiful bride to the praise of His glory!
And in Him, we are loved, more than we know.
