Communion Message
(The reed in His hand)
August 11-12, 2000
Pastor Donald Sheley

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Matthew records for us that moment when the soldiers mocked Jesus, and this is what he writes: Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed to the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.

One cannot help a feeling of surprise that the significance of the reed in Christ's hand has been strangely overlooked. Even art, with its keenly discerning eye, has passed it by. You can walk through the great art galleries of the world and you will find pictures painted of Jesus in the arms of his mother, or at the carpenter shop, or down by the lake, or in the upper room. The world's greatest artists have depicted the scenes of the cross with that passionate fervor it naturally inspires. They have shown us Jesus at Pilate's judgment seat, bound to the pillar while the soldiers scourged Him, crowned with thorns, and falling under the burden of His cross. But how rare, how rare indeed, it is to find a picture in the world depicting Christ with a reed in His hand.

The story of the mocking of Jesus makes for somber reading and as saddening as the story of the cross itself. It was a mark of that hard and cruel pagan mind that when a death sentence had been passed upon the condemned, that one was given over to the rude and pitiless horseplay of the guards. So the soldiers who kept Christ captive gathered the whole band for an hour and made coarse ridicule of this Galilean who claimed to be a King. One fetched an old faded scarlet tunic and cast it upon His shoulders to mimic the imperial purple. Another, with a deeper scorn, plucked a branch of a thorn bush from Pilate's garden and made a crown for His head. A third with a keener sense of humor plucked a reed, a slender swaying fragile thing, and put it in His right hand. And I want you to mark with me the significance of that reed.

These soldiers were stumbling upon eternal truths all unawares. You see the soldier's tunic is the garb of the conquering Christ. The crown of thorns is the emblem of Him who carried man's sorrows and lifted the curse from their lives. The reed: this reed is a symbol of Christ's rule and power. The kings of the earth wielded jeweled scepters, two-edged swords, rods of brass and iron; but had these soldiers searched all nature they could not have found a symbol in such perfect character as that of the government of Christ. The soldiers thought it a cunning satire, but it really was exquisite truth.

The tender heart and the gentle ways and the infinite compassionate Jesus were never more finely pictured than in Christ with a reed in His hand. When we bow before Him and reverence, before His goodness, His spiritual wisdom and His courage, His candor and His courtesy, and His love for man and His passion for God, but the marvelous His character is what He Himself picked out when He said; I am meek and lowly in heart. It was His gentleness, His tenderness, His self-forgetting compassion that amazed His disciples and laid a spell on them.

Paul later would write, Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus, who though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor that ye through His poverty might be made rich. And then he goes on to say, this is the mind of Christ, He emptied Himself of His glory. What Paul saw and what all men now see in Jesus as the eclipsing vision, is the King with the reed in His hand. That shines out in every turn of His life. He met insult and scorn and neglect with a calm brow and a gentle eye. They mocked at His birthplace. They ridicule Him as a carpenter. They marked His accent with superior scorn, and when He was reviled, He reviled not again. And I find it most fascinating that when you go through the four gospels and listen to the words of Christ, never did He have a rebuke for the sinner. That's amazing. We're so quick to make our judgments and pass our criticisms on others.

This gentle King with a reed in His hand, the compassionate King, welcomed the sinner with love. I'm glad my King is that way; compassionate, loving, tender hearted, depicted as the King with a fragile reed in His hand. I need that kind of the King. I need one who is patient with me because, just like you, I journey down pathways of unrighteousness at times in stubbornness against the will of God and the ways of God. We're all sinners. We all come to the service today needing God's grace, and we have a King that deals with us in compassion, tender, forgiving, loving, whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. I appreciate a king like that. Amen? Let's bow in His presence.

Lord Jesus, on this beautiful day of worship we come to Your house. We've had the joy of singing the great songs of the church and our faith, and now we have this momentous opportunity just to bow in Your presence and to have time with You, dear Christ. What a glorious privilege. As we kneel here we admit that we're sinners. There's not a one of us who would claim any degree of perfection today. We've failed You. We've thought things we should not have thought. We have said things we should not have said, and we've done things that were not right. We've sinned, but we come to You, King Jesus, and we love You for Your grace and for Your mercy and for Your tenderness and Your patience towards us. For some of us have come time, and time, and time, and time again to ask You to forgive us for the same failures. We're almost ashamed at times, embarrassed, and yet, each time we come You graciously forgive us.

Lord Jesus, again we come seeking Your cleansing and Your pardon. And the emblems we hold in our hands remind us that's exactly what You died to do for us, to forgive us, to cleanse us, and to wash us whiter than snow. Thank you Jesus. Let's take the bread together. It's so good, dear Jesus, to come from all of the tension and pressures of life and its problems, to come into Your sanctuary and just to kneel in Your presence and to know that You're with us. What an awesome moment, to know that You love us, to know that You forgive us, to know that someday we will forever be in Your presence. Thank you very much dear Jesus. Let's take the cup together, shall we? And everybody said, amen. Let's stand and greet one another, shall we?