The Lord's Supper

Now, as I mentioned, uh I've been an Anglican priest, uh, and I still am, and a pastor in non-denominational settings.

I've been involved in ministry for uh nearly 40 years.

Uh, when Justin asked me if I would cover the context of the Last Supper, the Lord's Supper, my first thought was, how many days are you giving me?

I mean, and why do you have to give me something so complex?

Why don't you just give me a single verse?

Not something like the Last Supper.

You see, as one who was raised in the liturgical church, how many were raised in Episcopal or Lutheran or Catholic?

How many of us are out there?

Okay, you know what I mean.

When you're raised as a little kid and you have to go forward, the priest is offered the blessing, you're supposed to kneel and put your hands out.

Well, to be honest with you, in the 50s, um, little kids didn't put their hands out to receive.

They were dutifully supposed to cross themselves like this, so the priest could pronounce a blessing.

I know it sounds very foreign to what we do here, but that's how I was raised.

But I wasn't satisfied with that.

Apparently, at age five, I put my hands out to receive.

And the priest smiled and folded my hands and put them back.

And apparently, I'm told, I screamed, I want mine.

I then locked onto the altar rail so that I would stay there until he gave me some.

I'm told my mother was rather embarrassed, one of the most embarrassing moments she had with me, because she had to bodily remove me from the church, as I screamed, I want mine.

Go figure.

Later on, as after I'd had a dramatic conversion experience to the Lord and left my Navy career in order to be a full-time priest, pastor, I studied the word a lot.

I still do.

And I really wanted to ask the Lord, Lord, why, how, what happened to those first believers that they went from being fishermen and farmers and ordinary folks like all of us and became world changers in just a generation.

How did that happen?

What did they do?

And I found a verse that the Lord has reminded me of often.

Those of you who know me have heard me talk about this verse a lot.

It's what the first believers did after they received the Holy Spirit, after Jesus had died for us, risen, and ascended to heaven as King.

Then the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples and that first band of 120 that are gathered in prayer.

And they go out, and 3,000 are baptized that first day of Pentecost.

And then we're told the very next verse, Acts chapter 2, verse 42, they devoted themselves.

Acts 2:42

It's a strong word.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

That's, of course, the Bible.

They devoted themselves to the Bible.

Okay.

They devoted themselves to fellowship.

That's a unique word in the Greek.

It's uh called coin the nail.

We really don't have much like that in the English language.

It's a devotion to each other's lives and to journey together.

You know, I know we have glimpses of that, but but this is this is sold-out commitment to other believers.

Pretty cool.

But they also devoted themselves to the breaking of bread.

And yes, to prayer.

Those are the four devotions of the first generation Christian church.

Now, I have to admit, if I went around and interviewed all of you and said, What are your devotions?

And you can't say family, and let's just remove the whole job thing.

What would you say?

Devoted to.

They devoted themselves to the Bible, to fellowshipping with other believers.

They devoted themselves to the Lord's Supper, devoted themselves to this, and devoted themselves to prayer.

So I came to realize this must be really important, don't you think?

I mean, if the first generation church ended up taking the gospel to three continents and started what is now the biggest movement in human history, you understand that, don't you?

We are followers of Jesus.

That makes us the biggest movement on the planet.

And the devotion of the first Christians included this.

So this must be really important.

So, yes, after I resigned from the Navy, uh Jill and I went to seminary, and the first year had to take those normal, you know, basic courses, you know, intro to this, intro to that, and so on.

But the second year, we got to pick on it with all the other courses we had to take, an independent research study.

So I went to the New Testament theology professor at the seminary, and I said, I want to do an independent study with you.

And he said, Well, Fred, what do you want to study?

And I said, I want to learn what this means.

Why is this so important?

And he said, Okay, this is what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna sign you 13 books over the 13 weeks, writings throughout history of theologians who've written about what the Lord's Supper is all about.

Each week you come in and we'll discuss that book, and the next week you read another book.

And my first thought, of course, was you've got to be kidding me, I've got five other subjects.

But I thought, no, this must be really important.

I want to know what this is all about.

So I had this conscious thought after 13 weeks of study, 13 books on one topic.

I I don't know anything more than when I started.

It's all so complex, it's all so many opinions.

Let me give you just a couple examples, and I've learned at least this perspective of what we actually call this.

Because, to be honest with you, I've been in a whole lot of settings.

I've been with Catholics, I've been with Lutherans, I've been with Anglicans, I've been with Methodists, Baptists, non-denoms, Pentecostals, I've been with all of us.

And we all use one of these three words.

The first word we use to describe what we're about to have when I finish is that, well, this is a sign.

In fact, that word is used a lot around here.

A sign is something that points to another reality, right?

A road sign.

You can pay attention to that sign or not, but if you don't pay attention to the sign, it might be very dangerous.

And why is this a sign?

Because it points to another reality, doesn't it?

It points to the reality that you were loved.

That we have have our lives, no matter how horrible they've been, or good they are, or we think they are, uh, we've been redeemed.

Jesus went to the cross for us.

He rose victorious that we might have new life in the Spirit.

He taught about that in the upper room.

That's what this is the setting.

They're celebrating this, and he's teaching about, as Justin has been teaching us, about humility and about the Holy Spirit.

So it points to that reality, right?

Who believes this is a sign from God for us?

For life?

Okay.

But there's another word that's used that's a little bit more significant than sign.

Not the sign is wrong, but often this is referred to as a symbol.

A symbol represents another reality.

It doesn't just point to it, it represents it.

This shirt is a symbol.

Anybody in this community who sees this knows we're talking about his hands and Christmas, right?

So, so this is a symbol.

It represents for us the reality that we are one with God, that he shared his life for us.

And when we receive the bread and and the cup, we're saying, Yes, Lord, I'm connected with you.

Not only because of this, but because of what this symbolizes.

My death and new life in Jesus.

How many think this is a symbol?

Come on, I don't see that many hands going up yet.

Okay, all right, all right.

We're still working on it, because there's another word that's used.

This, by the way, is often referred to in the language of our amazing worship leaders who lead our prayers each Sunday.

They often use the language of symbol.

But there's another word that the church throughout the history has used, many, many churches, and that's the language of sacrament.

Sacrament comes from the Latin sacra, it means holy.

Specifically, the definition of sacrament is something that's an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

When you have a sacrament, you're at another level still.

Yes, it points to another reality, but it's also the reality of what's going on inside.

Do I believe?

Do I know I need this?

Am I one with the Lord when this happens?

Or is this just something else?

I had somebody after we first started worshiping here, somebody asked me, Fred, uh, do they have communion?

And I said, Yes, we have communion every Sunday.

And I was asked, is it a sacrament?

And I replied, it is to us.

How many think this is a sacrament?

And you know what?

Whether you raise your hands or not, we all have our opinions.

We all have our convictions often from how we were raised.

It doesn't mean any of them are wrong.

It means they're all right.

It's just different ways of looking at it.

Let me let me take another uh go to another level.

Uh, I want to introduce to you something that if you've been around for a while and survived the 70s, you understand what a disco ball is.

Multi-mirror disco ball, right?

Um I didn't have time to Amazon to get one set up for us with a lot of lights and that.

But the the object is that it goes around in a circle usually and it has many facets and it puts light everywhere, right?

When we're talking about the subject of the Lord's Supper, we're talking about a multi-mirrored ball.

Because as soon as we think we understand it, it shifts just a little bit, and there's a whole nother level.

There's a whole nother perspective.

Let me give you an example.

Christmas.

Who thinks one of the greatest things about Christmas is all the lights?

That's all?

Gee, I love the lights.

I'll drop, I'll get in the car to drive.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

How many think it's it's really uh the time off from work and school and a chance to just be with family?

I said, you're still a bit hesitant.

How many think it's because we have an amazing Christmas Eve service at our church?

I said, okay, see?

How many think it's the great food that hopefully someone else will prepare?

How many think it's the gifts that you want to give to your loved ones?

How about it?

Those, let's be honest.

How many about the gifts you're gonna receive?

Do you see what I mean?

None of us are wrong.

They're just different facets of the same mystery that we have come in this culture to celebrate and call Christmas.

You with me?

So when we talk about the Lord's Supper, there's a whole lot of names that we could use for it.

For example, we do call it the Lord's Supper.

That was, this is the Last Supper.

We call it the Last Supper, too.

Uh, this is the last meal he has before he goes to the cross for us, right?

We also call it Great Thanksgiving.

Because it is the ultimate Thanksgiving we give to God for what he's done for us.

It's also called the Eucharist.

How many know the term Eucharist?

Wow, a lot of hands.

Okay, that's a Greek word.

You know what it means?

Thanksgiving.

It's just because that was the word that was used in the church, the Greek, from the Bible, and therefore it just played itself out around the world.

So it's sometimes called the Eucharist.

Uh often in more formal settings than we use here, but sometimes it's called communion.

Sometimes it's called holy communion.

It's communion with God, it's communion with one another, but it's holy communion because it's our communion with the Lord Himself.

Does that make sense?

Do you see what I'm getting at?

There's all sorts of ways of looking at what this is all about.

This is a great mystery.

But there's other names that are used.

Some churches uh call it a fellowship meal because we're all fellowshipping together with the Lord.

Some call it a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

Have you ever heard that one?

Oh, that's one I've used a bit.

Uh I love it because uh it's the foretaste of sitting at the table with the Lord, as we're told we will in heaven.

And if you want comfort when you're receiving communion, and if you've lost a loved one, let me mention this is the closest you get to your loved one in heaven before you see them face to face.

This is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

Make sense?

Are you with me?

Okay.

Uh, it's also, yes, there's some churches that call it the Mass.

And I'll share a little historical uh moment with that.

It's called the Mass, because when the Mass was celebrated in the Middle Ages in the church in Europe in Latin, most of the common people didn't understand what they were saying.

The priest was up there going through motions, saying all sorts of things they didn't understand in Latin.

But they understood the dismissa, because after they received the bread, they could go out into the world to share the love of Christ and to live for the Lord.

So they were dismissa.

And so the word mass comes from miss, the dismissa into the world.

And that's where the name comes from.

It was a formal service conducted normally by a priest or bishop, and people were sent out afterwards to go into the world.

Uh, it's also called by many churches a memorial, it's a memorial of a death.

It's literally like coming together and having, yes, a funeral service.

It's a memorial.

The death of an amazing one.

So it's also called a sacrifice.

It's the ultimate sacrifice, it's the sacrificial meal.

So now that you fully understand this, right?

You ready?

You're all set?

Should I just wrap up with prayers and we'll have communion?

What if I went a little further?

And as the mirrored ball rotates just a little bit, I want to pick out three other little mirrored facets in what I found is significant, okay?

One biblical, one from my own life and ministry, and one from Jesus' life and ministry, okay?

So that all this has been an introduction.

So if you're keeping score, don't I haven't given I haven't used any time yet of the sermons.

Justin, you're watching online, I'm sure, I haven't even started.

Now we're gonna be ready?

Now you know how complex it is, what he asked me to do.

This is crazy.

I can't do this in one Sunday.

Apparently he thinks I can.

Okay, here we go.

What they have gathered for is the Seder meal.

It's the celebration of the Passover.

And let's have that picture.

It's that reality that in the time of Moses, to end the last of the plagues, to get the Pharaoh to release the Hebrew people, they were told to sacrifice a lamb per family.

To take that blood and put it on the doorposts and the lintels, that is the frame of the door, and to mark that home as belonging to God.

And then they were to have the lamb and other things with the lamb, have a have a final meal before they departed, before they exodised out of Egypt.

Does that make sense?

This is the Passover.

You can read about it in Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

The details of much of it changed in various cultures over the years, but when what Jesus is celebrating with the disciples is already 14 to 1600 years old.

Let us sink in a little bit.

I have an Indian pastor who uh asked me uh what Thanksgiving was about, and he wrote, What's the context?

And I said, Well, 400 years ago, the pilgrims, and I explained it on a on a text to him, he said, Oh, that makes sense.

That's something to celebrate.

Uh, we're not talking 400 years, we're talking 1400 to 1600 years before Christ.

And the faithful people of God gather once a year to celebrate Passover.

That because of the blood, the angel of death passed over them and struck the firstborn of Egypt.

And so the people could go free.

That's what he is celebrating with them.

Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

As a matter of fact, at the time they shared the cup, there were probably four cups of wine, not one.

It was a party that won.

It was the big party.

It was our Christmas dinner over the course of a whole evening.

It was a big celebration.

And it was believed they had four cups of wine.

Uh let me just mention that passage out of Exodus chapter six.

I didn't have it put on the screen, but just listen to what uh God said to his people before it happened.

Say to the people, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of slavery.

So that bring out is often called the cup of sanctification.

It's a cup of being set apart for God.

I will deliver you from slavery to them.

So that's the cup of deliverance.

I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of deliverance.

That is often called the cup of redemption.

And I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.

That's the covenant being sealed between God's people because of the blood, and them taking that blood upon themselves, their household.

That's the fourth cup.

Uh theologians have debated for centuries.

Was Jesus, when he said, take this cup, was it the third cup, deliverance, or the fourth cup, the covenant?

Yes, probably.

Probably.

But I will share what was going on then.

Because they were, when they accepted that God will be their God and they will be God's people, that's accepting the covenant that had happened with Abraham 600 years earlier.

I will be your God and you will be my people.

Jesus led that out.

Listen to this.

When he took his cup, and he said, Take a drink.

And every one of those men at table, Judas had already left.

He had the bread, but he never took the cup.

They would have known what was going on.

Because in that day, when a man invited a woman into a covenant relationship, he didn't get down on a knee and said, Will you marry me?

He took his cup.

He said, Will you drink from my cup?

If she accepted the cup and drank from it, he would then say to her, I go to prepare a place for you.

And when I'm done, I'll come and take you to myself.

And the man would then leave, like Jesus did.

In his promise that night, he said, If you drink from my cup, we're in covenant.

I'm going to prepare a place for you.

And he goes to die for our sins.

Church, do you get it?

This is what's going on.

This is what we're asked to remember.

And in fact, when Jesus says, Do this in remembrance of me, even that word remember is a different word in English.

We don't have anything like it.

It's the word anamnesis, like, and the word is used in other contexts in medical settings, but it means make it real to the now.

It's not just, oh yeah, that's right, yeah, you did this for me, Jesus, thanks a lot.

It's not that at all.

It's like we have a picture of our favorite place we've gone on vacation, and we keep bringing it up on our phones.

Because we go, oh yes.

Make it real.

When Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me, he says, make it real.

You're at table with me, and I'm with you now.

So, what's the context for all the teachings that Justin has been teaching us that Jesus gave in the upper room?

Now, again, this picture, think of what's happening.

All of the public ministry is over.

All the contrary people who are trying to oppose Jesus and fight Jesus, their time will come, but not now.

Judas has already left the room.

Jesus is talking to his disciples, who will be the leaders of the church after he departs.

So he first teaches them, as Justin first taught us, that this new walk with Jesus means humility.

We count others first.

Jesus also taught up in that room with just the disciples that he is the way, he is the truth, he is the life.

That's what Justin taught us just three weeks ago.

It's all about Jesus.

And he taught more extensively than any other time in his ministry about the Holy Spirit.

That we're going to be living in an age of the Holy Spirit, that God is going to live within us.

And of course, they didn't have any clue what that meant.

That didn't make sense.

He's going to be taken from them and die in three days, he's going to rise, and then the Spirit's going to come and bring a joy.

He even goes on in the upper room.

As he's celebrating the Passover, he says, I'm going to complete your joy.

That's why the word joy comes up a lot at Christmas.

Get to that in a minute.

Jesus says, I want to complete your joy.

So let me just caution you.

If you've lost joy in your life or you've never found it, you're out of touch with the one who loves you.

No one can take your joy away from you once you have it because it comes from Jesus.

And he wants to complete our joy.

That's what he taught us in the upper room.

This is the context.

He's saying, Remember me, I want to complete your joy.

Not happiness, of course.

Happiness is all about circumstances.

Talking about deep inside, you know that you know that you know you are loved and forgiven by God.

And you're now living a new life in the power of the Spirit.

You with me?

So, what's the context for all the teachings that we've been getting these last few weeks?

It's Jesus gathering with the disciples to celebrate the Passover.

But I need to shift to another little facet on that mirrored ball, okay?

And it's from my life in ministry.

It's 20 years ago I had the chance of visiting Central Africa for my first mission trip overseas.

I had no idea what I would be encountering.

We were there just a few years after the genocide when a million people were killed by their neighbors.

It was a horror.

And we even visited at the bequest of our host a museum dedicated to the Holocaust, their Holocaust, the genocide victims.

I won't go into details.

Uh it was on Never Forgetless Images.

But you can imagine ministry was really hard.

I was taken into a jungle setting, going across a very difficult area, to get to a place where there were just stone, hand stone-stacked.

We wouldn't call it a building, but uh that's where they gathered to worship.

In the jungle.

They got really excited because the Mazungo was there.

Uh that means white man.

And for many of the children, I was the f I was the first white person they'd ever seen.

So they kept coming up to us, rubbing our skin to see if it'd come off.

I was asked to preach extended periods of time there.

Um, the last day, 100 people came forward for the altar call.

And my host at that time, the bishop, said, Fred, pray over them that these hundred would receive the Holy Spirit.

You can imagine ministry in that sitting was really, really tense and exhausting.

But he had promised us if we wanted to take another day and had just a little money, and it was in those days just a little money, he said, I'd love to take you to see the gorillas.

But was it Jane Goodall, wasn't she the girl, the one who made the wild gorillas up in the mountains of the Rwanda and the Congo, famous?

And we we'd go up on a program at the National Park and go see the gorillas, and we thought, oh, that'd be cool.

And we went away after this very exhausting week of ministry in very tense settings.

And finally we went, great, we're gonna just relax and have fun and look at a few gorillas.

We're in.

Little did we know.

The school bus came to pick us up, and we traveled in this bus, bouncing around over potholes for about an hour and a half.

We were so relieved when we finally got to the national park.

But it sure didn't look like a national park from our perspective.

It didn't look like Disney at all.

Certainly didn't even look like the Atlanta Zoo.

This was a concrete bunker in the middle of nowhere.

And as we're walking in, there's there's soldiers there with automatic weapons.

And we said, what are they here for?

Oh, they're your guides.

They're our guides?

Why are they armed?

Well, well, because we're we're going up in the jungle, you'll be going up in the jungle, and there's some Congo rubbles up near the border, and we want to make sure you're safe.

This does not sound like the Atlanta Zoo.

So sure enough, we get our briefing.

And among the briefing they said, when you get close to a gorilla, uh don't look it in the eyes, because it'll see it as a threat.

Just put your head down and look down, and they will know that you're not threatening their territory.

Okay.

And oh, by the way, never get between a mother and a baby.

Dangerous place to be.

But even if a gorilla charges you, don't run away.

Just bow your heads and bow low and they will stop.

And I I remember raising my hand, and the journal, half a dozen of us going.

And I said, excuse me, uh, how close will we be to the gorillas?

And they said, Oh, you won't be any closer than 30 feet.

You see, uh, I played football in high school.

30 feet's right over there.

30 feet, and there's no glass wall between us that's six inches thick.

There's no metal fence, we're just in the wild with them.

And so we start out.

Armed guard in the front, armed guard in the back.

We folks are walking along, we're going across the field to start going up into the jungle mountains.

And of course, the smack talk started with all the guys, the American guys saying, This has got to be the most stupid thing we've ever done in our lives.

We're in the middle of nowhere, 10,000 miles from home, nobody knows where we are.

And so we kept going.

And then it started raining.

So these guys get out the machetes and they're hacking away at the greenery so we can continue on the path.

I didn't know whether to cry mommy or just turn and run back, but we didn't know how to get back.

I mean, it was just it was insane.

But then, then, as we get up uh to a little curve, we look back at our four o'clock at our right side, and we see this.

The cutest little baby.

I mean, this little baby gorilla.

Uh, it was actually in a little bit more jungle than this particular picture, but just they are cute babies.

And and we all went, oh, look, our first gorilla.

And we're all getting pictures on our cell phones and the gals who have the big camera.

We had one gal with us uh who had a big camera, and she's doing all this kind of thing, adjusting everything and getting great photos of this baby gorilla, and we're just we're thrilled.

And our first thought was, okay, we're done, let's go home.

But no, we pressed on.

And after all the photoshop was taken, we take a few more steps.

He's still hacking away to get us to curve around to the left to follow the trail.

And then to our left, we see this.

It's one of the scariest moments of my life.

This was a mama gorilla.

As you can see from the hands, they're bigger than you can possibly imagine.

When the male stands up and hits his chest, he doesn't beat up here, he beats down here, and the whole jungle goes quiet.

No animals, no birds, nothing.

This is the mom.

She's here.

The baby's here.

We're right where we told not to go.

And then from her crouching position, we didn't have time to get that picture.

This is another one to symbolize.

She rose up, screamed, and charged.

Now, I know we've just been briefed.

Don't run when a gorilla is charging you.

But she was 20 feet away.

The baby was there, and the place we just came from was back behind us.

We all turn to run, and of course, the guy in the back trips on the wet leaves that had just been cut from the rain, and we all fall on top of him.

We're now a pile of humanity.

I think she probably started laughing.

I just didn't.

She came over to us, just touched the top of the pile, like, don't touch my baby, and don't ever do that again.

She didn't have to speak a word.

We knew exactly what she was saying.

She stepped away, we got up, crawled away, and said, Okay, we're done.

And the guy said, Oh no, we haven't started yet.

So sure enough, we had to continue on with the journey.

And I know I'm gonna surprise you because I know you've laughed, and but I really want to illustrate what's going on with the disciples.

Because the disciples had spent very intense weeks, especially the last week of ministry in Jerusalem with Jesus.

Lazarus had been raised from the dead, they had had the Palm Sunday coming in, they had had teaching on the temple.

It's clear the religious leaders were getting angrier and angrier and angrier.

There was a lot of tension.

They were asking him about the last days, all that's happening this last week.

They're finally going to have the Passover meal.

It's safe.

We're just gonna go with Jesus, we'll have a nice meal, we'll remember what went on, and we're good.

Until they stepped into that room and he washed their feet.

And he said, I am the way, the truth, and life.

And you call me teacher and lord, and so I am.

And I'm the vine.

You're just the branches.

And he said, It's to your advantage I'm gonna go away, because if I didn't, the comforter wouldn't come.

But when he comes, he will teach you all things.

They had entered into a world they couldn't possibly have imagined, just like when I entered into the world of the gorillas.

This was not safe, this was not rest, this is not a great bit of fun after ministry.

This is intense at other levels.

Because as I found in that jungle, we just entered into another world.

And when we enter in to the upper room, we've just entered heaven.

Life isn't defined by us anymore.

It's defined by our king.

He said, This is my body, this is my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me.

So when you come in on the Sundays and you pick up the little cup with the bread and the juice, just remember that we're about to enter into a whole other world where we're forgiven and we're loved and we're accepted.

Where Jesus Himself welcomes us to his table and says, I've got you.

I want you to accept the covenant, but I'm gonna go and prepare a place for you.

And I'll come back.

And the guarantee of that, I'm gonna give you the Holy Spirit.

And you may recall, on Easter night when he went up into the upper room, what did he first give the disciples?

He said, receive the Holy Spirit.

Fulfilling what he promised them just a few days before in the upper room.

You with me?

One more image, then we'll break bread, okay?

Yes, you with me?

Okay, I just said it sounds a little quiet.

You know, Justin, he likes us to clap or something on occasion, you know, just to let us know that you're alive out there.

Okay, now there's one more.

It's this one may surprise you.

Because what's going on in the upper room, the context for it, can now be best illustrated by the next picture.

You see, we have a real challenge that we're gonna have in less than two weeks.

We're gonna have to decide, either for the first time or to affirm again, that God became human.

That the Son of God, sitting at the right hand of the Father, left his throne in heaven to come to earth as an infant to be born fully human, because that was what he needed to do so he could shed his blood for us and mark our lives so we could be forgiven and we could be the people of God.

That's what Christmas is all about, isn't it?

God became man.

Oh, come, oh come, Emmanuel.

God with us.

That's Christmas, right?

That's what we're gonna celebrate.

That's what our three services are all gonna be about.

Do you really believe God can become human?

Do you really believe he can be your bread and wine, your bread and juice?

That he really wants to live inside of you.

What you think about this may reflect what you think about Christmas.

Or what you think about Christmas and what we celebrate has everything to say about what you believe about this.

Jesus said, This is my body, this is my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And then Christmas becomes real.

Not about all the gifts, not about the lights, although all that's wonderful, but about what's going on inside of each of us with our Savior, with our Lord, the one who's guiding our lives.

Do another half a dozen faucets, or should we?

No, let's just stop right now.

Is that enough mirrored ball issues for a couple for at least today?

Can you think as we're about to receive uh the Lord's Supper, is there at least one of those that you can connect with today?

And say yes, Lord.

So you ready?

Then take out take out the bread and the juice and open up the bread.

And let's remember everything he taught us and all the significant things that Justin is teaching us is in the context of this, as Jesus shares the bread and the cup with the disciples.

Father, we ask your blessing upon the bread that we're about to receive.

That indeed we would enjoy full fellowship with you.

That you let your body be destroyed and crucified and given over to death so that we could have your life.

This is such a crazy exchange.

But we are grateful and we say yes, Lord, to you.

Receive the bread.

And now the cup.

Blessed and holy Father, we will never understand fully the price that Jesus paid for us.

It is so unfair.

We don't deserve it at all.

But we know that this cup represents your cup.

Lord Jesus, the gift of your blood to mark us as belonging to you.

So we take it with overwhelming thanksgiving and gratitude.

Thank you.

You have washed us, you have forgiven us, and that we are free.

In Jesus' name.

Receive the cup.