The Transfiguration

Good morning.

Today's reading is from Mark 9, verses 2 through 13.

Mark 9:2–13

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.

And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good that we are here.

Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud.

This is my beloved son, listen to him.

And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

They asked him, Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?

And he said to them, Elijah does come first to restore all things.

And now is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt.

But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Uh my name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

This is our last week in Mark for the year.

And next week we move into our Advent series, which leads me to an exceptional pre-sermon announcement.

We not think the announcement will be exceptional, but I'm making an exception and making an announcement pre-service.

It might be exceptional in other ways.

We're all about to find out together.

We're going to decorate the church right after our service today.

So now look to the person you came with and say, hey, those lunch plans that we had right after church, we're gonna have to push them back a little bit.

Is that okay?

And then uh see what they see what they do.

And we'll see which ones of you are closers.

So we're going to turn our church into a wonderful Christmas decoration uh scene.

You know, um uh moving into the Advent season, our whole city will transform and be covered in Christmas decorations.

Uh, many people not even celebrating the birth of Jesus, uh, but just sort of like participating in a nostalgic pattern.

And I was thinking about decorations this morning, and what's wonderful about being Christians this time of year is that many people think of the way that they're celebrating Christmas as an escape away from reality into a fantasy that they can participate in in a childlike way, uh, but that they participate in as something that is just a fantasy and unrelated to life.

There's a sense in which it's a bright thing that shows how dull life really is.

We get to participate in the exact in the exact opposite direction.

As we decorate and as we bring to light, we're actually being in our hearts pressed deeper into the reality of the world.

We're decorating and preparing for the arrival of a king because we're really looking forward to the arrival of a king.

And we're really gathering to celebrate the birth of the one true king.

And so these decorations, there's this there, there's this wonder, and I don't want you to get swept up in the fantasy, um, but participate in such a way that it pushes you into the reality of what we're celebrating.

That's a wonderful thing to participate in.

All right, let's pray.

Holy Father, I pray that you would attend this time as we complete our time in mark for the year.

We thank you for the revelation that you've given through Peter to Mark and writing it, and uh that continues to feed your church to this day as we grow in knowledge of you.

Lord, as Zach uh uh said this morning as he quoted Colossians after our confession, Lord, we pray that we would be filled with the knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

We might walk in a manner that's worthy of you, fully pleasing to you.

We might bear fruit in every good work, and that we might increase in a true knowledge of you.

We might know you in the way that you describe how you relate to us.

We might know you like a friend, we might know you like a father, we might know you like a brother.

Lord, these things are too high for us.

Uh, we praise you that you come down to our level that we might know you.

We pray that you would do that through your word this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So today is the story of the transfiguration.

This is the part where Jesus finally glows.

Now, if I were writing a uh gospel message, or if I were uh Jesus and planning to come to reveal to the world that I um was the Son of God, the Christ, the one who was prophesied, um, and that all authority in heaven and on earth was would be given to me.

And that was the message that I wanted to convey.

And then this part, the taking people up onto a mountain and watching me glow as dead prophets arise and I speak with them, that would have been step one for me in conveying this.

And then whatever anybody said, I would have been like, I can glow.

And then people would have had to have been like, that's true, he can glow.

But for some reason, Jesus does it in a in a much more inverted way than we would.

He uh takes uh not even all of his disciples, just three of the twelve, up with him privately up onto a mountain, and there he is transfigured before them.

And then instead of saying, Hey, when we get down the mountain, whenever you get in an argument with a Pharisee again, remind them like challenge them to a glow-off.

No, he he does the opposite.

He says, Don't tell anyone about this until after my death and resurrection.

So that means that this isn't just a, you know, like the electric light orchestra version of Jesus, which is a great band.

This is something deeper that's being revealed about the identity of Christ.

And it's something that even the disciples, the ones who were eyewitnesses of it, can't fully understand until after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And so we're going to try and see this morning what is it that Jesus is demonstrating to the disciples?

What is it that he's showing this small group that something that they must know in order to be able to interpret and understand what takes place when he goes to the cross and when he is resurrected.

Something that they wouldn't be able to understand without seeing this transfiguration.

My hope today is that we'll be able to see it alongside with alongside them.

So let's look at the event, the transfiguration itself.

Mark 9, verses 2 through 3.

Mark 9:2–3

It says, And after six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them, incredibly understated, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.

This is one week after Peter had confessed that Jesus is the Christ.

And then after confessing that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus explains, This is wonderful that you have properly identified me.

The Lord has given you this insight into my true identity.

Now, here's the next steps in the story for the Christ.

The Son of Man will suffer, he will be rejected, and he will be killed, and then three days later he will rise again.

To which Peter responds, Don't do that.

Don't suffer and be rejected and be killed.

This is not the move for the Christ.

You're the promised Messiah, the prophet, priest, and king.

You're the one who's going to lead us triumphantly and gloriously from glory to glory.

And Jesus says, Get behind me, Satan.

Your heart is not set on the things of God, but it's set on the things of man.

You aren't able to understand what it means that I am the Christ.

Properly identified the character, but you have him placed in the wrong story.

And something similar takes place here, where Jesus is revealing his identity, but he has to keep it contained so that it can be understood within the gospel narrative, so that we can see that this glorious one is the same one who is marching towards death.

So it's six days after that conversation, and he takes Peter, James, and John up onto a high mountain.

And as he takes him up, uh it so let's talk a bit about the setting.

Now, uh high mountains are typical biblically of places where God reveals himself to us.

Now we aren't good at thinking in this way because we are modern scientific people, and so we're not good at entering into the symbolic worldview of the scriptures.

But I want you to consider this just plainly.

Why on top of a mountain?

Mountains are where the heavens meet the earth.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to piece that one together.

Mountains are the highest possible point that you can get.

They are where the earth meets this point, and at that point the heavens join to it.

And so that pattern is described to us throughout the scriptures, a heaven-meeting earth pattern.

Eden is on top of a mountain.

The Garden of Eden, it's on top of a mountain.

The pattern of the Garden of Eden is laid out in the tabernacle.

It's a mountain pattern, and that mountain pattern was relayed to Moses as he went to the top of the mountain, and there he was met by God.

It is on top of a mountain where Elijah hears the whirlwind and doesn't hear the voice of God, but then he hears in a whisper the voice of God on top of a mountain.

So when the disciples are being brought to the top of a mountain, they ought to have this expectation.

We are going to where the heavens meet the earth.

And so we are going to see something of that pattern.

We are encountering something that is transcendent.

And so they go there to the top of a mountain.

And as it says, on top of the mountain, Jesus was transfigured before them.

And he was transfigured before them.

It's so hilariously understated, but I don't know how else he says it.

He was transfigured before them.

The word that is translated into transfigured, it may be simpler to grasp in the original language.

It's metamorphote, from which we get the word transfigured.

Just kidding.

Metamorphosis, right?

You know.

But we already know that what that word means.

There's this transformation that takes place in his person, like a like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.

It has this dynamic within it of maintaining the same identity.

You know, it's the same caterpillar and the same butterfly, like they're both named John.

It's not that he gets a different name when he becomes the butterfly.

You guys have had friends that are butterflies.

Maybe not that you've known since they were caterpillars, that may be.

What does it mean that this man has this radiant face that's shining like the sun?

What does it mean that Christ is light?

This is not a reflection.

This is generative light.

This is radiant.

It's radiating out from his person, is this light.

And what we're what's being revealed there, what does light mean in scripture?

Well, let's start at the very beginning.

And, you know, then we that way we make sure to catch everything.

Hey, look, there's something right away.

And the Lord said, Let there be light.

Christ is the word of God.

He is the let there be.

He is the light of the world.

He is the thing from from which all understanding and knowledge and goodness and perception, that He is the source of all of that.

And now He is revealing this realness of His transcendence there visibly to His disciples.

In Mark 9, verse 4, it continues on.

Mark 9:4

The strangeness of the moment continues.

And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

Now, Elijah and Moses are both long since past.

Neither of them are glowing, but both appear just like the men that they were.

I don't know what they had on them, perhaps name tags or something, that let them know that it was Elijah and Moses, but they knew, they were able to identify that this is Elijah and Moses.

And they're standing, and the word for talking with Jesus, it's a word that describes a mutual conversation, a conversation of mutual agreement together.

So they're they're discussing something like uh like the way that great friends discuss and look forward to something that's far off.

Now, before we touch on what it is that they're discussing, I this is such a visual story.

So I want you to practice just a visual imagination.

Just practice your visual imagination for this moment.

Christ is glowing, and he's flanked by Elijah and Moses.

Now, if you were to just stand back and witness that image that's being given to us, perhaps you go and visit like a European church where they have stained glass that's not as like symbolic and postmodern as ours, but conveys images of things.

And there's a uh in the image is a glowing Christ flanked by Elijah on one side and Moses on the other side.

And you just let your imagination, what is being conveyed?

What did the artist intend by the places that they put them?

The light is emanating from Christ, so he's different from Moses and Elijah.

But why these two men?

Why Moses and Elijah?

Oh, it is Moses who heard from God on a high mountain.

Oh, and likewise Elijah heard from God on a high mountain.

Moses is the origin of the law.

He is the one who relays the law to the people of God.

Elijah is perhaps the greatest of all the prophets who comes into the people of Israel and he purifies them of the evil and wicked of the Baal worshippers, and he reorients the kingdom towards a heart for the Lord.

And so we have the chief of the law, we have the chief of the prophets, but neither of them are shining.

Instead, they stand flanking Jesus, who is shining onto them all.

We would stand back from a stained glass like that, and we would think, oh, it is Christ.

Christ is the one who shines down, who shines his light upon the law and the prophets.

It is the law and the prophets which give us the vocabulary to be able to understand Christ, but it is only by the light of Christ that we can understand what this law and what these prophets have meant.

This whole story, this whole story of the scriptures has been arcing towards this one man who is a man like them.

I can recognize him as a man because of the stained glass window, but he's shining unlike these other two men.

That is the image that we're given of Christ on this high mountain.

It is the image that took place before Peter and James and John.

Now, what were they discussing?

Mark doesn't tell us.

He's too spare in his details.

He told us that it was better than any launderer, but he didn't tell us what Jesus, Elijah, and Moses were talking about.

Luke does.

It says that they were discussing Jesus' upcoming departure.

But the word is better than departure.

You'll recognize it.

They were discussing Jesus' upcoming Exodus.

Now what a thing to talk about with Moses.

I've had one of those.

It went well.

It was challenging on the back end.

Moses and Jesus and Elijah.

What would Elijah's Exodus have been?

Perhaps something like yes, there were a bunch of uh teachers and prophets of Baal that had come in and contaminated the people of God.

But I brought God's judgment upon them, and the people of God were freed from those prophets of Baal.

Moses might say something like, The people of God were oppressed by the nation of Egypt, but by the power of God, I walked the people of God safely through the judgment of God as the Lord passed over them and as he upheld the waters as they passed by.

But then the judgment of God washed down upon the Egyptians, and the people of God were freed.

And Jesus might be saying, Yes, I too am going on an exodus in which I will save the people of God through the judgment of God.

And Moses and Elijah might ask, Who is the judgment of God going to fall upon this time?

And Jesus would say, Me.

I will be the one who in this Exodus bears the judgment of God.

And as the judgment of God falls upon me, the people of God will be saved, not just from their external oppressors, but from the sinfulness of their own hearts, and they will be reconciled to me forever.

So Peter, James, and John might have overheard a conversation like that.

Here's how Peter responds.

Mark 9, verses 5 through 6.

Mark 9:5–6

And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it's good that we're here.

Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

Now, remember, uh, Mark's gospel is also Peter's gospel.

So Peter is able to give us clear insights into what he was thinking at precise moments of him saying things like this.

Why did he say that?

For he did not know what to say.

For they were terrified.

Probably an appropriate reaction.

Peter is one of those people who just starts talking when he's terrified.

And I think it's good that Peter puts this in here because what's happening is we've we've seen moments like this in Scripture before.

We've seen moments of going up on a high mountain and receiving a vision from God.

And he's not wrong to think these moments, uh, it uh on at least one very prominent occasion, Mount Sinai, was followed by a very important tent.

That seems to be a trend in Scripture because one of the things that he, Moses receives on the mountain is instructions for how to build the tabernacle, which is a tent.

Very nice tent, you know.

But the pattern of Peter's thinking, I think, is given to us here.

That way it can be cut off.

So that we don't imagine this event in the way that Peter had begun to imagine this event.

Peter is wrong on a couple of fronts.

The first is he's offering to Elijah, Moses, and Jesus the same type of dwelling.

And what did the tent mean?

The tent was the place where, in like a mountain, it was the place where the heavens met the earth.

And the tabernacle is ordered so that the earth matches, the earth is raised up in such a way to where it matches the pattern of the heavens.

And that's the ordering of the tabernacle.

And so Peter is saying, Let us raise up the earth again and we'll create a more permanent dwelling.

And the dwelling will be the same for each of you, because you three each offer the same connection of heaven to earth that we are desiring to make more permanent.

Elijah, Moses, and Jesus are not the same.

The pattern that Peter is thinking in is one of raising up the earth so that it might match the pattern of the heavens, and then they would be able to live there in glory.

But he does not yet understand the pattern that the gospel takes.

Jesus is not on a pattern of raising up.

Jesus is still on the part of his journey, which is just a descent.

It's what they were talking about.

Jesus's Exodus is now a march towards death.

Jesus will correct this thinking soon.

Lastly, John Calvin pointed this out, and it was very John Calvin could be funny.

Like 1600's funny, you know, it's not like he says, also it was strange for Peter for Peter to consider that the kingdom of heaven might be contained to 20 or 30 feet.

That's a good point.

Just logistical consideration.

There's another thing that he didn't spot, which is worth noticing.

You know, Jesus' face was shining.

And Moses used to go into the tent of meeting and meet with God, and when he left the tent of meeting, his face would shine.

And the people of God were so terrified by Moses' shining face that they demanded that he wear a veil whenever he came out and speak to them.

Now Moses' face shined after a meeting with God.

And so it reflected the light of God, perhaps like the moon.

Jesus' face is radiant.

From his own face, after no meeting with God before this, Jesus' own face shines.

There's something being revealed here to Peter.

Jesus is the Son of God.

And he'll get a further confirmation right now.

In Mark 9, verse 7, and a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud.

Mark 9:7

Listen to him.

In Luke's account, I like this in Luke's account of this story.

He says, as Peter was still saying this, a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out from heaven.

What a glorious interruption.

We'll build a tent for you, a tent for you, and if this is my beloved son.

You know, this glorious interruption of Peter's way of thinking, which is here's just another prophet.

And here's just another instance of a pattern that will give us the grammar and vocabulary to be on to be able to understand this coming Messiah.

No, no, here he is now.

And he is more than just a prophet, a priest, and a king.

Listen to the words from the cloud.

He is my beloved son, the beloved son of God.

What type of categories does Peter have to interpret something like that?

Son of God.

You know, we are bad at thinking in terms of royal families, and so, except for like the crown, you know, that show.

In which case we're good in thinking in terms of royal families.

But I couldn't watch that show, it was too fast-paced.

That's my joke about the crown.

You can use it if you'd like.

In Deuteronomy 18, 15, Moses prophesied.

And he said, God will raise up for for you from among your brothers one who's like me.

Listen to him.

And in Acts, Peter will say that though one who was like, he will say of Jesus, this is the one whom Moses prophesied, saying, He will raise up someone from among our brothers, listen to him.

They are standing in the fulfillment of this prophecy, and the truth of Jesus' identity is being revealed to them.

Now, when I was first looking at this text just this week, I was talking with a friend about how strange the transfiguration was, and how I wasn't really able to grasp what's going on here.

Because when I thought of the transfiguration, to me, it always seemed a bit superfluous.

Like, what would the gospel story be like without the transfiguration?

In my thinking, it was like, well, not much different.

But that's because we're missing how these things are being pieced together.

Jesus here is being revealed as the Son of God by the Father in plain view, with Moses and Elijah beside him as the supports, the scaffolding of the law and the prophets, so that we might be able to understand that we're being given here in an image, the very structure of the whole Bible, the structure of all of the scriptures is being laid out to us here with the shining Christ and with the confirmation of the Father, the Trinitarian unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the support of the scriptures is all laid out for here before Jesus dies.

He gives this image, this moment, this picture and experience of the whole story that they're in, so that Peter, James, and John might have something to draw on as they move through this strange next season with Christ, this march towards his death in Jerusalem.

And so this is where Jesus must take their minds next.

He must be able to say, look, all that you have seen here, this is tied towards my death.

He says this in Mark 9 9, and as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen until Oh, I missed I missed a spot.

After the voice of Jesus, excuse me, after the voice of God comes down and says, This is my beloved son, listen to him, in Mark 9, 8, it says, and suddenly looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

This is the shock of the revelation.

This is all about Jesus.

This all conforms to who the revelation that Jesus is the promised Messiah.

You heard the voice of God declare it, and then look, the only object of the sentence can possibly be Jesus, this man.

Now, as they're coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

What you've seen, you won't be able to understand until you see me risen from the dead.

The walk that we are on descending this mountain will be a continual descent towards my death.

So what is shown to us here?

Remember Mark 1:1.

Mark 1:1

This is the thesis statement.

This is the project of Mark's gospel, where he introduces this book and he says, the beginning, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

He lays out his intentions.

The intentions of this book are to convince you that this man, Jesus, is the Christ, and he is the Son of God.

Peter, only a week before, had confessed rightly that Jesus was the Christ.

And so the language of the identity that Mark laid out before, we have this piece of it.

Jesus is the Christ, the one who is the prophet, priest, and king.

But now we have this other piece of the puzzle, which is yet to be confessed by a man.

In fact, it won't be confessed by a man until a Roman centurion looks up after seeing Jesus crucified and says, Surely this man was the Son of God, at the very end of Mark's gospel.

This understanding will pierce through into a human heart, but here it is told to us explicitly that Jesus is the Christ, prophet, priest, and king, and this Christ is the beloved Son of God, who is marching towards death.

It is the beloved Son of God.

So what does that mean of all that will unfold on the march towards Jerusalem?

It means that this is no accident.

It means that there is no higher power at work in Jesus losing his life.

There is no higher power at work in his suffering, in his rejection, and in his death.

His life is not being taken from him.

He is laying it down of his own authority, because there is no higher authority than the Son of God.

So how does that language frame this whole event of what's going to take place at the crucifixion of Jesus?

It shows us that the one who is laying himself down for his people is the beloved Son of God, which means that this is a mission which has as its center and at the center of its motivation, the love of God.

What we have here developed after the transfiguration is the ability to say something that the disciples could then see, which is, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

What's happening in this march towards Jerusalem?

We are being shown in no uncertain terms the unthinkable, unfathomably deepness of the love of the Father that he would give his only Son.

We can see that now.

Now that we see the identity of Christ.

This is a mission which has at its center the love of God shown to us in the person of Christ.

Mark 9, 10 through 11.

So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

It's a good question.

What do you think?

You know, there's still one thing that's kind of in my mind, rising from the dead.

And they asked him, Why did the scribes say that first Elijah must come?

Now, in Malachi, it's prophesied that first Elijah will come, then the Messiah will come.

And so it's a good question.

And in Mark 9, 12-13, he said to them, Elijah does come first to restore all things.

Now, it's explained in other Gospels that Elijah is John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was ministering in the spirit of Elijah.

He was the final prophet.

And John the Baptist comes as a forerunner to Jesus.

Their ministries are dovetailed together.

But Jesus wants his disciples to see that because their ministries are the same, the pattern of their ministries will be the same.

And he says, and how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt?

This is the question that he poses back to the disciples, but he answers it for them.

How could it be written that the Son of Man would suffer many things and be treated with contempt?

And he says, But look, open your eyes at what has happened to Elijah, to John the Baptist.

But I tell you that Elijah has come.

And they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.

He says, Look, open your eyes.

You see who I am.

Understand the shape of the story is one of my descent, my exodus.

He is marching towards death.

It is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who marched towards death, that by his sacrifice we might be saved because of the unstoppable, unthinkable, unfathomable love that God has for us.

These things are what is visible in the transfiguration.

Peter will witness the crucifixion of Jesus.

He will witness the resurrection of Jesus.

He will be commissioned as an apostle to go and proclaim this news of Christ.

And he does so all over the first century Roman world.

And he will do so even to the point of it costing him his own life.

Jesus will be crucified in a like manner to Jesus, because of his proclamation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

That means it's after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Well, the limits have been met.

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven.

For we were with him on the holy mountain.

Peter, look, this is so different from what I described to you in the image of Christ on the mountain with Elijah and the glory of God.

This is a cosmic image.

This is an image which contains the whole narrative of Scripture, in a sense, and lays out the way that we are to understand the world.

And many religions have their cosmic images, which lay out how we ought to understand the world, and they're not talked about in a way which is nobody says of those things, nobody says of the yin-yang, you know, but that actually happened.

This is the strangeness of Christianity, the this essential element of Christianity.

Where Peter says, I am not telling you some cleverly devised myth.

I am a fisherman.

I'm a Galilean fisherman.

You know, I have no training.

I'm not even exposed to what the cleverly devised myths could be.

What I'm telling you is that I saw it happen.

That this really happened.

And I want to shout this.

We have an advocate right now before God in heaven.

We have our sins atoned for because of him.

We are to proclaim his kingdom, which is marching forward towards a glorious consummation at his return.

These are not cleverly devised myths.

He is a fisherman.

I heard it happen.

Just before this, he says that he says, I know I'm going to die soon because the Lord has shown it to me.

And it's no problem for me to tell you these things again because I want you to know these things.

I want you to know these things as we finish this time in Mark.

This really happened.

So what are you gonna do with information like that?

All right, are there any questions today?

Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

This communion that we're about to participate in is not just a religious confection that performs some, you know, psychological anchoring or puts some psychological stability into us.

This is an act of remembrance of a thing that took place.

And the way that you pass those down as you participate in the patterns of those, that they might move through time and across generations, and that these things might be held close to our own minds and hearts as we live today, although removed a long time, it is held in our practices as a remembrance.

We remember today that this man Jesus is the Son of God, that he lived, he died, he was resurrected, that our only hope in life and in death is that we belong to him.

We remember that it is the Son of God who poured out his blood, whose body was broken, so that through his sacrifice of love we might be saved.

It is also a proclamation.

So if you are a Christian, we invite you to come and proclaim this.

If you are not a Christian, then don't proclaim it yet.

But instead ask the people near you, how could you believe something so strange?

Maybe they're stranger than you think.

Maybe they see something that you haven't yet seen.

This really happened.

So let's come to the table in remembrance.

Father, let us remember, you, the Son of God, the message of your gospel, the demonstration of the Father's love towards us.

Lord, let us have a new certainty.

Jesus, you loved me and gave yourself up for me.

Paul will say those words to himself.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

Lord, let us say those words with confidence as we come to your table this morning.

Because it is true, we live by faith in you, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.