While the world still stands

[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good to see you.

[SPEAKER_00]: How you doing today?

[SPEAKER_00]: You doing today?

[SPEAKER_00]: You good?

[SPEAKER_00]: Doing alright?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good hanging in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sunday morning, 11am, let's go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to everyone joining us online or joining us in the parents room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think shout out to our parents room volunteers, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's so good to be able to have a hosted parents room.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now if you're here and you've brought a child that's under four,

[SPEAKER_00]: We salute you, because getting to church with a small child is like, that's an effort in and of itself, it's easier sometimes to stay home and so well done on making it here.

[SPEAKER_00]: We appreciate that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to make sure that, you know, for everyone, every age and stage and every generation is able to kind of connect in and so we've got, we host that parents room just so that it's a little bit easier for our parents, but we just want to honor you guys and say thank you so much for being here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now a couple of years ago, I was carrying this big plank of wood and I was carrying with someone else and they pulled one end and it slipped out of my end and the wood fell.

[SPEAKER_00]: whack straight onto my toe, my second toe, my, my, my right foot.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't think much of it continue on carry on with my day.

[SPEAKER_00]: About a year later, I realized, oh, I'd actually broken it and now it's healed and it's all healed or, like, weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's kind of, like, it's not a great shape and it's not really straight anymore and it's kind of, it's a reminder for me of that

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, of when I dropped a big piece of wood on my toe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, for each of us, you know, you can't really, our feet don't offer the best parts of ourselves, do they.

[SPEAKER_00]: For some of you, someone touching your feet is indulgent.

[SPEAKER_00]: For some of you, someone touching your feet is gross.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for most of us, you've probably spent your day not really thinking too much about your feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: You just kind of continue on and carry on.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's one thing that I know about your feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that you can smile, you can put makeup on your face, you can straighten your posture, and you can kind of bring your best self.

[SPEAKER_00]: with your face and your smile and your makeup and your posture.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing you do not do when you meet a new person is take your shoes off and give them a look at your feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's not really anywhere to hide once you offer that piece of information to someone.

[SPEAKER_00]: They get a really good idea of who you are and what you're about, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We know, you know, if your feet tell a story of work boots on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, all year round.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your feet tell a story, if you're more of an inside person or an outside person, if you've walked on glass or been these through summer or hot sand, your feet tell a story.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the first thing that we put forward to someone, because it's not, we don't really have the same ability to manage it and curate it, like we do our faces on the rest of our bodies.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the ancient world,

[SPEAKER_00]: You could tell a lot about a person because of their feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could tell if they'd traveled along distance to get somewhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could tell if they worked in the fields.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even still today, you can tell a lot by someone because perhaps their feet have got snake bites or injuries or damage from rocks or all of these kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now what's striking to me is in the passage

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus meets His disciples and comes to them not at their hands, not at their heads, not even at their hearts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus begins with feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that should tell us something about who Jesus is, and I think what we're going to

[SPEAKER_00]: That Jesus doesn't love the curated parts of us, the presentable parts, the beautiful parts, the covered over parts, the carefully managed parts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus comes to us and he loves the parts of us that a dusty, busted or broken.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not because we're immoral or somehow wrong, but because we're human.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we pick things up, don't we?

[SPEAKER_00]: As we walk through life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pick up things and we pick them up on our feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take a look at John 13.

[SPEAKER_00]: The verses are going to be up on the screen.

[SPEAKER_00]: There will also be in your bibles or on your phone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: During supper when the devil had already put into the heart of Judas' scariot Simon's son to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he laid aside his out of garments and taking a towel, he tied it around his waist, then he poured into a basin, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus answered him, what I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus said to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's completely clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you're clean, but not every one of you, for he knew who was about to betray him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why he said, not all of you are clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you'd wash their feet and put on his out of garments, he resumed his place and said to them, do you understand what I have done to you?

[SPEAKER_00]: You call me teacher and a Lord and you are right for so I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I then, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash another's feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: When the incredible passage of Scripture, and it begins at the start here with John's who's writing this gospel saying he was with his disciples, this is a moment before a couple of days before he would be crucified, and John says he loved them to be end.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that phrase loved them to the end, doesn't denote time, like he loved them to the very last moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was depth, it denoted depth.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loved them to the last.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loved them with everything within him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he sets that up to say, this is how we should understand the action that was about to take place.

[SPEAKER_00]: That Jesus was showing the depth of his love for his disciples by what he just did.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the very same time, we're also told that in that same moment, Judas is getting ready to betray Jesus, and so we have a depth of love and a depth of betrayal all happening and sharing the same room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, doesn't that happen in life?

[SPEAKER_00]: Wouldn't we just love it if we kind of piled all the good stuff in our lives into one period of time?

[SPEAKER_00]: You're just in a purple patch, just loving it, everything's good, but how often

[SPEAKER_00]: to joy and pain share the same room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Parallel tracks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some things are fantastic.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at the same time, we're reminded of our brokenness, fallenness, and things that aren't going great.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they happen sometimes in the same week, sometimes in the same day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like in this passage, sometimes in the very same moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what does Jesus do?

[SPEAKER_00]: He says his hour has come.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've given me everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've come from God and I'm about to go back to God and I know what my destiny is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not romantic.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of a resolve that happens here with Jesus and he takes off his outer garment.

[SPEAKER_00]: He takes off essentially his coat.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he wraps a towel around his waist.

[SPEAKER_00]: and begins to do something very unique and specific.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now to understand this, we have to do a little bit of cultural analysis because I'm not sure the last time you, someone offered you to wash your feet when you went out for dinner, but this is what happened common practice in the ancient world.

[SPEAKER_00]: So imagine here, I've got a really big table that set up in the middle of this room.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there is an opening at this end where servants or slaves come and bring food.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a nice big table.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then all of us,

[SPEAKER_00]: There's couches or like cushions all the way around three sides of the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what you would do, very specific, is lie down with your head towards the table, resting on your left elbow, not right, left elbow, and you would reach to the table and take the food off the table, kind of like appetizers snacks at the start of the meal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's with me so far?

[SPEAKER_00]: You've washed only one hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've washed your right hand on your left, you are leaning and with your right hand, you're taking grapes and dates and bits of prosciutto and maybe not prosciutto in the ancient world.

[SPEAKER_00]: In this context, but others, you get the idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of this, let's go with all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Things like that, and you're reaching in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at the very same time, a slave comes in.

[SPEAKER_00]: from outside the room not part of the party.

[SPEAKER_00]: A slave comes in with a towel wrapped around their waist and they begin to wash everybody's feet, who's at the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: Washing the feet was more important than even washing the hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've only got one clean hand so far.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is just on trays, by the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't even made meal yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: So again, sounding like a pretty good time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so everyone's feet is facing away from the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's very rude in the nature and culture like this to point your feet at anybody or to put your feet towards the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: You do not do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because nearly everyone here's walked to get here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't have, you know, Nike TNs or whatever of the cool kids are wearing these days.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've got sandals, these kinds of things, and what happens when you walk to dinner or walk anywhere?

[SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna get dusty.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna get muddy.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're sharing the road with animals, with all kinds of things, and you're picking all this up along the way to dinner.

[SPEAKER_00]: or even for the last day, or for the last two days or three days.

[SPEAKER_00]: Very rare that someone would have ridden a horse or a donkey or a mule because that's just, that's if people with means, but most people have walked and so you've picked all this up along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what's remarkable in this story is that they're getting settled for dinner and Jesus himself gets up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Walks out.

[SPEAKER_00]: takes off his outer garment, puts a towel around his waist, and plays the part, does the job, not of a servant, but of a slave.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in the ancient world, if you were a rabbi and you had some disciples, the disciples and there was no servant or slave around, the disciples would step into that place and serve their rabbi in that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It might be getting water or saying a prayer, the rabbi wouldn't do that, the disciples would.

[SPEAKER_00]: If there was no servant there to get the water, the disciples would.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they would take that place of a servant usually except for one practice.

[SPEAKER_00]: washing a feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was beneath even disciples to do for their rabbi.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so in this moment Jesus does something that not even his disciples would be expected to do for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He goes lower and lower still and takes the place of the lowest slave.

[SPEAKER_00]: to wash the dirt and the mark of his disciples' feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as he makes his way around the table, something else happens, he gets to Simon Peter.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, in Peter's having a good meal up until this point, he's enjoying the food, he's enjoying the conversation, there's a few jokes going around the table, and all of a sudden, Jesus arrives at some in Peter's feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, stop.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're not gonna wash my feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is too low, and I will not allow you to do that for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So strong is Simon Peters' injunction here.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the Greek, it's a double negative.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's no, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: Surely not, you will not wash my feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: To the very end of the age.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's something like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We would say it like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Never in a million years.

[SPEAKER_00]: will you wash my feet?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a literal translation.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says never to the end of the age will you wash my feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: While the world still exists, while this world still stands, you will not wash my feet Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what does Jesus say?

[SPEAKER_00]: If I don't wash your feet, we have

[SPEAKER_00]: We have nothing in common.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many of us are comfortable with God being high and mighty and lifted up?

[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea of Jesus taking the place of a slave and looking at our muddy feet that makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable, doesn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it made Simon Pita feel very, very uncomfortable.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you cannot follow a crucified Lord whilst also at the same time refusing his humility.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen Jesus, the word that was God, the word was with God, the word was God, it was with God in the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: All things were created through Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then in this moment, Jesus stips down and kneels.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're comfortable with a Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who is above?

[SPEAKER_00]: But in this moment where Jesus kneels down to wash His disciples' feet, does He stop being Lord?

[SPEAKER_00]: He shows us exactly what kind of Lord he is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Peter says, well, if you're gonna wash my feet, Jesus, don't stop there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wash my hands, wash my head, give me a bath.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're gonna do my feet, do everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says something interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, did he look around the room, says, who had a bath today?

[SPEAKER_00]: And they all looked like, yeah, we did, we all had buzz.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, well, if you've had a bath, you're already clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the journey here, you've picked things up on your feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: So your body's clean, but your feet are not.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I'm washing your feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this isn't a story of our we need to come back to Jesus, be resaved over and over and over and over and over and over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're in Christ, you're a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come and yet you're still living in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you walk around and your feet of picked things up along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: They picked up dirt, mock, grime, they got stuff dropped on them.

[SPEAKER_00]: These people have stepped on them, and now they're carrying a bruise.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're being injured, they're a bit dirty, and Jesus says, bring.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to kneel down, and I'm going to deal with those feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a few words here in the Greek that get used.

[SPEAKER_00]: One is to babe, when Jesus says you've already been bathed, we talk about that as the experience of salvation, which we see curiously in that act that we call baptism.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where we go into water, and we come up into new life, into death, and into new life, and we come up what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he looks around and says, all of you are clean, except for one of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you don't need to be washed.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to be bathed, but you do need your feet cleaned.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is because we keep walking through a broken world, dust accumulates on your feet and dust accumulates on mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're clean but we're still dusty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's clean but still dusty?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm clean but still dusty.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're clean but still dusty, dust accumulates, offense, conflict, brokenness, bad decisions, addictions, things that you've picked up, things that are there on your feet that you know, aren't meant to be there.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not rebellion, like active rebellions, just residue.

[SPEAKER_00]: Life, silt,

[SPEAKER_00]: that gets picked up along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, how do we respond?

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is a question for you where have your feet been this week?

[SPEAKER_00]: Where have your feet been?

[SPEAKER_00]: They've picked things up along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: The journey of life has taken its twists and turns, and you haven't come out of it unscathed.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've picked up a little bit of damage here and there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've stepped on a few rocks.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've stepped on some hot parts and some cold parts.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've had to run across some bindi-infested lawn to get here today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus isn't washing your feet to shame you, but he's washing your feet to restore fellowship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you know what happens when you walk through life and you pick things up on your feet, all of a sudden, Jesus starts to feel more and more distant.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus comes so beautifully back into your life and to mind, kneels down onto the ground in the place of a slave and washes your feet clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: And says, now we're good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're good again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're together again.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is humble service.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not an act that Jesus was asking his disciples to repeat over and over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, obviously, in different culture, we're in a different culture in a place now.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't even have record of the disciples than going on through the book of Acts, washing everybody's feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was something that Jesus was saying about who he was and what he'd come to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, some questions, what has climbed to your soul lately?

[SPEAKER_00]: or what has your soul clung to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where have your reactions been sharper than your character?

[SPEAKER_00]: What attitudes have become normal that should actually be confessed?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not groveling.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is just agreeing with Jesus about what doesn't belong in our feet and allowing him to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: He kneels anyway.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gets down on his hands and washes our feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not the beautiful parts, not the curated parts, not the parts that we show to the world, but the parts that we point away from the table because they don't belong.

[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, Jesus says here, I have given you an example.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is interesting because he's trying to teach his disciples not just to be something but to do something.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is very uncomfortable for us and it was an uncomfortable for Simon Pader because

[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't compatible with his view of who Jesus was and what Lordship should look like.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if Jesus is Lord, we could never have pride.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pride can never be part of our posture, because Jesus doesn't give us any reason to be or any example of being proud or being proud or prideful.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the opposite.

[SPEAKER_00]: He kneels down, takes the place of a slave, takes off his outer garment, puts a towel around his waist, gets on the floor with their dirty feet, washes every single one of them, and then says, I've given you an example.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: The best Christians amongst us are not the most visible, but the most available.

[SPEAKER_00]: The most faithful people in our midst are the ones who serve, how they've been served.

[SPEAKER_00]: The most faithful ones amongst us are not ones inanimate with a platformer, with a voice, but with a posture that kneels.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I love it because even menial tasks take on meaning when they're offered as worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even the smallest, most unseen, most inseemingly insignificant things take on huge meaning when they're offered as devotion and worship to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And why do we know that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we just watched him do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We watched him do that very thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: What task do you secretly hope someone else will do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Where do you avoid inconvenience because it seems beneath you?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then thirdly, there's a cleansing.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's an example, but there's also a commissioning in this passage.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because washed people, washed people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says at the end of this passage, now we have to be careful with this because we could turn it into something that it's not.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus says here in this passage, you are now that I've washed your feet, you ought to wash each other's feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that word ought,

[SPEAKER_00]: in the Greek is a word, awful letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, awful letter means the word means debt.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in the Lord's prayer, when Jesus says, and He's teaching His disciples to pray, and He says, Lord, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

[SPEAKER_00]: Know that part of the Lord's prayer, forgive us our debts, same word.

[SPEAKER_00]: same word.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus is literally saying, now that I've watched your feet, you are in debt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you need to pay that debt to someone else.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're already clean.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not saying work for your salvation or work so that I love you or work so that you're, no, no, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's already loved them to the most, to the deepest.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's already loved them to the extent that he could love, so they already know they loved.

[SPEAKER_00]: They say, now that you know that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please go and show others that they're also loved.

[SPEAKER_00]: Show others your inductives now.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to, the active response of being loved by a savior king who takes a position as a slave is to then go and offer that to others in love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wash others feet, washed people, should wash people.

[SPEAKER_00]: means to O.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, the decision not to serve, and not to love is a decision to stay disconnected.

[SPEAKER_00]: The New Testament doesn't know anything about solitary solo Christianity.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're saved into family, and even at the smallest level, every family has those little list of chores on the fridge or the wall, or the things that people do, whether it's washing dishes, or cleaning the dryer, or mowing the lawns, or taking out the bins, all of those things are obligations to the family members because they share the space.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus and I love washing your feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm commissioning you to wash feet of others, but here's another dangerous thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's inviting them to share in his humiliation.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't love this, and some impeded didn't love this.

[SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't handle his Lord being humiliated in this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet Jesus was inviting him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, this is on the beginning of his humiliation, because in just a few days who would be, he would be pulled up onto a Roman cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: and tried and treated as a criminal even though he'd done nothing wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if we follow him, we cannot be proud.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because everything we have, we've received.

[SPEAKER_00]: So John began this gospel and we spoke about this last week.

[SPEAKER_00]: He began it in glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning was the word.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the word was with God and the word was God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was with God in the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at everything that's been made.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not one thing has been made without him.

[SPEAKER_00]: All things were made for him through him and by him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet in this moment, we see Jesus kneel down.

[SPEAKER_00]: and wash the dust that he created of his disciples' feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Such is his humility, and this, my friends, is our Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we are charged to go and do likewise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Team, why don't you come?

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're gonna share around the table together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna take communion.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd invite you if you've received community elements on the way in, please take those.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you did not receive community on your way in, please put your hand up nice and high.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our hosts will quickly get around to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can prepare that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can peel off the tops of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Gody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Off the tops of your community.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we'll eat and drink in just a moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can just prepare that now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nice.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in a minute, church, we're going to take this small piece of bread, which represents Jesus' body which is broken for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: that almost the pinnacle of his humiliation.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take the cup, which represents Jesus' body, which was broken and spilled, and blood for us in our place.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's remarkable to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: The hands that washed the disciples feet within peace for our sins, the knees that would kneel would buckle under a Roman cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is who Jesus is.

[SPEAKER_00]: In three days, he would rise, which would be proof of his claim to Lordship.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for now, we're left with this image of ultimate humility, sacrifice, surrender, and service.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in a minute, I'm gonna pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: To the Lord, let's eat and drink, see and drink together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we thank you for your grace and mercy towards us in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for the grace that comes to us, not to the curated or parts that are together but to the parts that are busted and broken.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for your grace, to cleanse us of all sin and then to keep washing us as

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you, Jesus, for your example, that you show us what Lordship true Lordship looks like, not to Lord it over, but to come under and serve.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord, we receive your commissioning today to go and do likewise, to love, serve, and care for others in the same way that we've been loved, served, and cared for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.