Jesus' Ministry

A reading from the Gospel of Mark.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Genesaret and moored to the shore.

And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region, and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was, and wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment.

And as many as touched it were made well.

This is God's word.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

That was fun, wasn't it?

Yeah, I love that.

There's going to be an encore presentation of about the same group of kids, a little different.

It's like if you see, like, I don't know, Fleetwood Mac or something.

And they'll be uh uh on 4:30 on Christmas Eve.

So uh yeah, come to that service.

It'll be fun, and they'll do the whole song and dance again.

Um great readers.

It's hard to read in front of people.

Uh and they did a wonderful job.

Okay, so a couple of announcements, and then we'll move into today's text.

So as I shared, Christmas Eve service is at 4:30.

Um, so yeah, come and join us for that.

It'll be wonderful.

Uh, it'll be a candlelight service, so we'll light candles and sing, and I'll give a sermon for the kids and stuff.

It's all very sweet.

Um so uh you'll you'll uh like to come to that.

And uh our toy drive, we're gonna wrap that today.

No pun intended, I guess.

Um, but that'll be that'll be over today.

And I hope you noticed when you walked in, there's so many toys.

Uh so wonderful, wonderful job.

Uh that'll be a great thing for the Denver Children's Advocacy Center.

Um and lastly, I want to continue to put this on your radar.

Each year we do a Bible reading plan as a church.

This is available to you in the Redemption Church Denver app.

So if you just go to your app store of choice, type in Redemption Church Denver, type in the whole thing, Redemption Church Denver.

So if you just type in Redemption Church, there's like a thousand Redemption churches.

So you don't want those.

You want Redemption Church Denver.

And uh the reading, the reading plan that we're doing this year is different from the ones that we've done the previous two years.

Um we've done the uh McShane reading plan, which takes you through uh the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice, and the Psalms twice.

This Bible reading plan that we're doing is just the Bible one time everything in a year.

So there's slightly fewer readings.

And if you've never read the whole Bible before, uh, this is a great opportunity and a wonderful way to do it that's pretty manageable on a day-to-day basis.

So jump in with us.

It's a great way to uh to read along together with the community.

Um in fact, we should probably put some more things around it, like you can sign up and be part of our message board.

Would anybody be interested in that?

You could like text in questions and then we could answer them in some way uh to each other or like collaborate on that.

That could be cool.

Okay.

Well we'll Zach will do it.

He's so good at putting stuff like that together.

It's it would be a shame if anybody else even tried.

Uh okay, so yeah, Bible reading coming up.

Uh if you're hunting for New Year's resolutions, this is uh a wonderful, a wonderful one to have.

So let's pray, and we'll move into our last Sunday in Mark for 2021.

And so we won't be back in Mark until fall of next year.

Let's pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for your uh glory proclaimed through our children and our church.

What a beautiful thing to witness.

Lord, we praise you that your word has continued on through generations.

The news of your kingdom's arrival, the news of your birth has been passed through generations so that we are recipients of it here thousands of years later, and we get to pass that on to our children.

Lord, I pray that we would get a clear picture this morning of the ordinary course of your ministry.

Lord, that we would see what your kingdom means, and that we would have this sort of uh uh cemented in our minds as we wrap up Mark for this time, that we would be able to get a clear picture of who you are, Jesus, which is our whole intention for moving through this book.

Lord, let us see that this morning.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So today's scripture is a really simple text.

It's almost more like a summary statement.

And Mark uses these sort of frequently throughout the book, where he'll we'll go through this grand adventure with Jesus.

Something will happen.

Uh, there'll be a storm on the ocean, or there'll be a demon-possessed man who rushes up to Jesus.

And then sort of in these lulls, we get these pictures of here's what the ordinary course of ministry was like for Jesus.

This is almost like a refrain or a motif.

I say both because I don't know which one it is.

I looked it up and I was like, I can't really tell the difference.

But there's probably somebody who understands music and knows.

So just pretend I'm saying the right one.

But when uh it's almost like his theme song is what we get, and we get those those notes of it.

You know, when uh uh Frodo remembers the Shire, and you hear the Shire theme in the back.

Uh when Darth Vader appears, it's the Imperial march that shows.

We remember that Indiana Jones is adventurous because actually they kind of abuse the theme in that movie if you've watched it recently.

It's the same thing, every scene is the same theme.

But anyway, it's a good it's kind of it's like that.

This is the theme song of Jesus' life.

What does it ordinarily sound like?

And it we get those pictures in these refrains that we might otherwise just glance over.

So the text today might seem like, what do we even say about that?

Isn't that something that we just know already?

But I want you to hear that it becomes so deeply meaningful in its repetition, in our hearing it over and over and over again.

And we want to hear this as though we're hearing it for the fourth, fifth, sixth time because we are.

As we've moved through Mark, we would have heard something like this just over and over and over again.

And we'll hear this is the theme song of Jesus' life and ministry.

Here's what it sounds like.

Now let's move into it with this question.

What would you expect the theme song of God to be if he became a man and came back to earth to establish his rightful kingdom?

What do you expect that song to be like?

For God to come in, become one of us, and establish his rightful kingdom.

What would it be like?

Let's get into today's refrain, slash motif.

Mark 6, 53.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesseret and moored to the shore.

Now, last week, we'll just provide the context first.

Last week, uh Kyle did such a wonderful job, right?

I've heard that from so many people.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, he too read in public.

Uh and the he uh told shared with us this wonderful, this wonderful story just prior to this one, of where Jesus is up on a mountain praying, and the disciples are at his instruction trying to sail to Bethsaida.

Um uh and in sailing to Bethsaida, they encounter a storm and heavy winds, and then Jesus comes and walks on water out to their boat and climbs in, calms the storm, and then the next thing that they do is when they crossed over, they come to land at Gennesaret.

So they aren't coming to land at Bethsaida.

So if you look at a map of the Sea of Galilee, you'll see uh Bethsaida is over here.

I'm probably doing it opposite for you.

But if you look at a map, you'll see that Bethsaida is over here on the east, and then there's Capernaum right in the middle, and then on the west is Gennesseret.

And so they're literally in the exact opposite direction of where Jesus had told them to sail.

The storm had pushed them in precisely the opposite direction.

So they're landing in a place that as if we're following the flow of the story, we'd say this is an unplanned expedition.

They've been disrupted by the wind.

And so they've been put somewhere where they didn't plan to go.

So what happens to Jesus?

What is Jesus like when he winds up in a place that we would say, now this is strange, right?

Of course, a place Jesus didn't plan to go.

So just to you can text that question in.

But he winds up at a place that's unexpected, and uh what we get to see there is, okay, so what is what is he just like?

You know, what is he like when he's just dropped into a new environment?

What is the the ordinary part of Jesus?

You know, you can get this picture with people, like if you were to just drop somebody in a new group of friends or something, uh or potential friends or enemies, then it you would you would hear, okay, what is it the thing that they're just wanting to talk about?

You know, what is just coming out of them?

And you get a picture of, okay, there's certain things where if you poke this person, here's something that comes out.

Like they just want to talk about cryptocurrency, something.

And you're like, okay, here we go again.

You know, things like that.

And you just hear you, if you poke this person, what is it that comes out?

So we're going to get to see that type of picture of Jesus.

And when he winds up in this unexpected location, we hear this refrain that's so familiar.

Here's what it sounds like.

There could almost be a genre of Jesus stories of Jesus getting out of a boat.

What happens when Jesus gets out of a boat?

Mark 6, 54 through 55.

And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was.

Do you hear the theme song?

How many times have you heard this refrain?

Well, you're about to find out it's it it's been many times.

When Jesus first started his ministry, he announced and preaches in the synagogue for the first time, announces that the kingdom is present, he heals a person who's demon-possessed, and then he calls Peter to himself and goes to Peter's mother-in-law's house in Capernaum.

Peter, Peter's mother-in-law, is sick.

Jesus heals her.

News begins to spread around Capernaum, which is this same region.

News begins to spread around Capernaum, and a crowd gathers, and he's up until the small hours of the night healing people as the crowd gathers around him.

That's in Mark 1, 32 through 34.

After that, uh he goes on a journey around Galilee, his first preaching expedition, preaching in the synagogues around the Sea of Galilee.

And we see then again, he comes back to return to Capernaum, and a crowd gathers at the door, likely of uh Peter's mother's house, mother-in-law's house, and a crowd gathers around the door.

It says, so that they couldn't even fit in the door.

And remember that story?

That's when the men carry their friend, their sick friend, on the bed, and they lower him down through the ceiling by digging through the ceiling in front of Jesus.

And so the crowd gathers once again, and the sick are healed.

That's in Mark 2, verses 1 through 3.

Mark 2:1–3

And then Jesus leaves the region of Galilee and they sail across.

Uh, there's a big storm again, and they sail across, Jesus calms it, you know.

Don't want to leave you on pins and needles.

What happened with the storm that you mentioned?

And they sail across out of into Gentile territory, into a city called Garasa, and they get out of the boat.

And what meets them when they're in this new Gentile territory?

Um a demon-possessed man immediately runs towards Jesus, and Jesus heals him.

And then they get back in the boat and they sail back across, and what happens?

But a crowd gathers around Jesus again, and we see uh the first person to meet him is uh the the father, uh is this man named Jairus, and he says, My daughter's sick, come heal her.

Then a crowd gathers around them as they're walking to heal Jairus, and that's when the woman uh presses who'd been sick for 12 years, presses in on Jesus and grabs just the fringe of his garment and is healed.

And so a crowd gathers around and Jesus begins to heal.

That's Mark 5, 21, and the verses following.

Then he sends out the the twelve, and and then when they come back after doing their ministry, he says, Okay, you guys need to go to a desolate place and rest.

So they sail back out again, and then they land in this place.

It's just a desolate place.

And what do they meet there?

A crowd of 5,000 people who followed them.

And what are those 5,000 people?

Hungry and wandering around listless in the wilderness with no leader or king.

And so, what does Jesus do with these needy 5,000 people that can't feed themselves?

He feeds them.

And then now the disciples have come back across the sea after feeding them.

There's another big storm.

Jesus walks on water, which is strange, and uh they land back across on the other side of the sea again.

So, what do you think is going to happen?

What happens when Jesus arrives in new towns?

What happens when Jesus gets out of a boat, even in unexpected places?

We hear that same theme song over and over again.

In this week's text it sounds like this Mark 6, 56.

And whenever he came in villages, and wherever he came in, oh excuse me, I skipped.

Mark 6, 54 through 55, when they had got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was.

It's the same theme over and over again.

So what do you expect?

The theme would be if God became a man and then he came into the world to establish his kingdom over against his enemies.

What would the theme be?

Well, we can we can know it would sound something like people who can't bring themselves are carried.

People who can't feed themselves are fed.

People who can't heal themselves are healed.

That's what the presence of the kingdom of God would be like.

That's what it is like.

So it continues on in Mark 6, 56.

And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment, and as many as touched it were made well.

So if we just continue sort of meditating on this question, what would you expect?

What would you expect the kingdom of God coming in its glory to be like when it made its way into the world?

What type of people would you expect him to be with?

You know, in in uh they're making sure, Mark is making sure, he says, in villages, cities, or countryside, that's the everything.

Look, no matter where we went, Jesus became surrounded, particularly by the needy.

That is the true cross-section of where the kingdom of God breaks in.

It breaks in where human need is.

We have a region in our country called the Bible Belt.

And N.

T.

Wright is an Anglican theologian, and he has my favorite Bible belt quote.

He says, the reason that uh the church's pants didn't fall off in America like it did in Europe is because Europe didn't have a Bible belt to hold them up.

Which is kind of a he can say it.

I can quote it.

You know, I'm not here to like zing the church in Europe.

But there's a um uh but there's we have a we have like a real cultural Christianity, you know.

And a lot of times we take that for granted, uh, the benefits that we receive because of that.

You know, especially, especially folks like us, north of the Mason Dixon.

And uh, you know, oftentimes moved out of cultural Christianity type of environments to move to a place like Denver, so it's like, oh man, I don't have to deal with that anymore.

But I'll tell you what, if you meet, if you meet a church plant in Denver, you're likely meeting a church plant funded by these giant megachurches in the South.

That's a wonderful benefit for the Christian community.

Um we uh we uh um we we shouldn't we should be slower to throw throw stones at our brothers and sisters, is all that I'm saying.

Uh but if we were to imagine, or if a sociologist were to do a study and say, where is it that uh if Jesus were to come back into the world now, where would we see the first movements of uh you know this Christian revival taking place?

We the sociologist would be able to say, oh, well, we can map where's the most giving to churches and where's the most consistent church attendance and who uh elects the most Christian politicians and has uh try and has the most Christian legislation or something.

We'd say, okay, it's sort of in this Bible Belt region, and that's where we would see this growth of uh this revival.

But that's not what we see in scripture.

The cross-section of people isn't geographically determined like that.

In fact, the cross-section of people is determined by need, but it's not even just where we normally carve need.

It's not even just sickness and and poverty.

You know, one of the uh people who rushes to Jesus in the crowd is uh out of the crowd is Jairus, who is a leader of the synagogue.

You know, he is uh in a position of power, and yet life put him into a situation where even in his position of power, he was powerless before his sick daughter.

And that cross-section uh goes through all demographic barriers.

All that unites them is need.

You can't say this is a countryside religion.

This is a Bible belt religion.

This is something that takes place in outside of, you know, it it's it's west of Sheridan, it's not east of Sheridan.

Amen?

Uh because Denver's a blue dot, and then a red thing, a donut.

And then Boulder is um an outer space.

But those cross-sections that we would ordinarily draw, Mark is making a point to show that's not the way the cross-sections worked with Jesus.

What was the what was it?

Where did the kingdom of heaven break in?

Where the human need was.

And it broke in most completely with the people who were most uh who were pressed right up against their need.

And that's where Jesus, he just shows up uh in a town unannounced, and what happens?

All of a sudden, there's just energy, and people are running.

out back.

They said Jesus is here.

Okay, I've got to find, you know, my brother and we're going to run back home and we're going to, we're going to grab our our mother or our mother-in-law.

Both of mine are here.

Hello.

And carry them back to uh and carry them over to Jesus because we've got to get them healed.

And that's the type of energy that just moves through the town and that's what establishes the cross section.

Consider, think, who would you rush back to carry?

What would you bring in your life right now if you heard Jesus just showed up?

What would you run out of here and say, oh, I just got a an Amber alert for but a Jesus one.

That's what we would have.

And everybody's phones would go off at the same time and then and you'd look and then you'd you'd run out and say I'm looking for a 1998 black Toyota Corolla.

And you'd find Jesus and it who would you bring what what need it could be you could be yourself you a need you're experiencing.

But what need would it be that drew you to Jesus?

They're carrying these things and there's a rush of energy around them.

And here's what happens I'll read the verse again.

And whenever he came in villages cities or countryside they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment and as many as touched it were made well.

What would you expect the ordinary refrain of God to be if he became a man to proclaim his kingdom?

We see what the ordinary refrain is he comes to where human need is that's where Jesus goes.

That's the energy that he inspires around him to bring the need to him now our question regarding what what type of theme we would expect for the kingdom of God with its entrance in Jesus.

The real question is well what do we think the kingdom of God is going to be like and we can know that because we have these prophecies throughout scripture of looking forward to the kingdom of God and its arrival and saying what is it going to be like so that we could know what to expect.

A couple of great excerpts in Isaiah 35 and then later in Isaiah 61 I'll read them both.

Isaiah 35 3 through 6.

I'm going to read more than is up there strengthen the weak hands make firm the feeble knees say to those who have an anxious heart be strong fear not behold your God will come with vengeance with the recompense of God He will come and save you.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped then shall the lame man leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy for waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert The kingdom of God is going to arrive.

What type of thing would we look for?

We want to see sick people healed we'd we'd want to see look who does it come to first look where where it comes to first strengthen the weak hands make firm the feeble knees say to those who have an anxious heart be strong fear not where does it break in anxious hearts that's where we're going to look for the movement.

Show me an anxious heart and what we've got is we've got those places where Jesus comes in fear anxiety about the future this is where the kingdom breaks in.

Isn't that strange?

Isn't that not what you'd expect for the announcement of the kingdom of God coming in where do we look for that?

Where are the doors?

What are the gates that we open up to usher in the kingdom of God?

What do those gates look like when they open up they look like fearful anxious hearts and sick people that are hungry and surrounded by problems that they can't fix themselves.

Those are the gates those are the doors that's the type of kingdom that Jesus ushers in Isaiah 61 verse 1 Jesus actually reads this to announce the beginning of his ministry and the fulfillment of this passage.

Isaiah 61:1

Where does the kingdom of God come in?

To captives to those who are bound who find themselves in situations they can't get out of who find themselves in patterns of living that they can't overcome that is where we look to see the kingdom of heaven breaking in.

And it breaks in with the very presence of Jesus as he reads this very text and says this has been fulfilled in your hearing here's what's unique about the announcement of the way that Jesus proclaimed the kingdom versus the way that Isaiah proclaims the kingdom here.

They're both proclaiming the same kingdom.

But Isaiah is saying look forward to this Jesus is saying this has arrived in me.

This kingdom you are experiencing in me and in the presence of me you are experiencing this kingdom.

He's saying I am the king this is a very strange thing for a religious leader to say.

In fact it kind of tips your hat if you're around a religious leader who starts to talk like that, then you can know this maybe a little more of a cult type of a thing than it is like a religious leader type of a thing.

Jesus says things like if when you're in me then you're you're participating in the kingdom.

Buddha never says he would never never imagine using the phrase in Buddha and yet throughout scripture we just say in Christ in Christ in Christ we are made righteous.

In Christ we are justified in Christ we are made clean in Christ we might overcome in Christ there we are provided all of our needs Muhammad would never say in me can you imagine it's it's obviously blasphemous and Jesus says in me in me the kingdom has arrived this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing it as I said it, Jesus says the ministry of Christ is the coming of the kingdom.

He is the kingdom of God in our very presence this is the refrain of Jesus' life.

And then here's what's wild so does that mean that when Jesus resurrected and then ascended back into heaven did the king, did he take the kingdom with him and then say, okay, I'm going to come back and then there's going to be this weird time where I've been here and I've shown you what the kingdom is like and then I'm going to go back to heaven and I'm going to take the kingdom with me and I'm going to hold it with me.

And then I'll come back again a second time and that's going to be where everybody gets it all the time everywhere.

That's not what he does though.

Instead he establishes the kingdom and then he leaves it with his church how bizarre so when we look forward through the church as it begins to move even after Jesus' ascension ascension we should hear this same refrain and we do.

Listen to Acts 5 14 through 16 and more than ever believers were added to the Lord multitudes of both men and women so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem.

So maybe it's not just a city thing maybe it's a countryside thing village thing bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits and they were all healed.

Both passages it's that last word healed this word is also translated about half the time in scripture is saved.

Do you hear the refrain?

Do you hear the theme?

The kingdom moves on why because Christ is the Lord he gives to the church the very same spirit his spirit which was moving in the world so that we can declare the presence of the kingdom what is the gospel it's an announcement a good news the arrival of a king and we proclaim as the church the world has a king.

What has it been like to be in the world?

We've been like the 5,000 that gathered in a desolate place.

And what were those 5,000 doing they were plotting to try and overthrow Rome so that they might feel established as a people with a king over them.

We're all gathered in some factions this is more evident than ever as our culture dissolves around us into factions.

And we see that we are just we are just a hungry people gathered together with no king.

And that is where Jesus comes in and we see that he comes in right at the place of people's need.

And that same ministry that same refrain is passed on through the church now I I know what many of you are are thinking no it wasn't this refrain the the church does not sound like that the church sounds like very very different from that the church history doesn't sound like this refrain of Christ sounds much more corrupt than that.

Contemporary church history I don't know if you guys listen to any podcasts but it certainly doesn't sound like that.

It sounds like narcissistic leaders and codependent members.

Isn't that what it really is?

It doesn't sound like a place that's beneficial to the weak and draws them in.

It sounds like a place that preys on the weak isn't it unbelievable what we can get Christians to believe I read I don't who knows if this is true but it was something like 17 of the top 20 Christian Facebook groups were run by like Ukrainian disruptors or something for real.

For real I read that I'm not going to attest to like the reality of it.

But isn't it wild that you hear that and you're all like yeah I can see that because doesn't it seem like what is the church?

This is the place where you pray upon the weak.

We gather them all together so that they can be taken advantage of that's what the church history looks like, doesn't it?

So where is this refrain?

How can we make this claim that the spirit is moving through the church that it's this very same spirit well don't you see that that caricature of the church that I just put out it's missing this ingredient of what is central to the refrain.

Look Jesus did not say I give to you I take this refrain and now you will play a new refrain which is like mine but now it's the kingdom of the church that moves forward.

No that is not the case we play the same refrain as Jesus which is this Christ is Lord.

We are not this is the refrain that we move out into the world with Christ is Lord.

Christ's presence in the world is the coming of the kingdom.

We look and celebrate Jesus we celebrate his glory moving in the world that's what we're doing at Christmas the king has come the kingdom has arrived in him.

And what is central to that is the cross.

So what gathers the church together is her need.

What brings us together as a body what rushes us to Christ to worship and honor him.

It's our understanding of our need so what what ought we to look like then?

What would the church look like if that's what the shape of the kingdom was, if that's what the shape of Christ's ministry was if it was that he saves us, that we're rescued by him.

It would look like man those people hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Do they have it?

Sometimes it seems like they do.

Other times it seems like they really don't but they really want it they're they're meek and sometimes they seem useless.

They're poor they're poor in spirit even they they turn on each other and they buy into the same geographical differences to judge each other that the rest of our culture does but there's this this thing this need in them that proclaims Jesus as Lord you can see that right in this text and more than ever believers were added to the church they could have said that would have been a bit of a different refrain and more than ever believers were added to the Lord.

That's what it says and more than ever believers were added to the Lord multitudes of both men and women added to the Lord this is our final time in Mark and so I want us to hear this refrain Jesus is Lord.

We proclaim him this is the strangeness of our faith that he is Lord the one we worship the one we look to who atones for us in our weakness draws us to him in our weakness and so let us sing in a way that shows he is Lord.

Let us gather into the church to seek Christ as our Lord let's join in to participate in this the very same refrain.

What is the way that we participate in the refrain of Jesus do you know who you are you're not the one who people are rushing to you're the ones rushing to him that's that's who we are in the refrain.

That's the the notes that we play Jesus plays the the big I don't know anything about the metaphor I've found myself in Jesus and we and then we just are the accompaniment yeah that's right that's right that's that's preaching.

But you see you see it right you see it and in that we see Christ's glory demonstrated one of the ways that we do that is every week what does the church do?

We gather together and we commune.

And so we feast on bread that he gives us as though we're 5,000 people without a king hungry in the wilderness and Jesus comes in and says I will preside over this meal as your king and I will give it to you even of myself that you might be fed and now this disparate group of people becomes a unity under the king and we we eat his his broken broken body because it was broken because of our sinfulness that we might be atoned for.

His blood is poured out that we might be cleaned you see it's just what do we bring our need over and over again saying if I could even grab the tassels why is it the tassels?

Because it's the fringe if I could even grab just the fringe of something just the edge where it's really subtle and I don't even know if I can clearly articulate it completely yet.

What's even more subtle than a fringe of a garment it's a shadow you know Jesus had a fringe that's at least something to touch.

Peter had a shadow it's even less of a of a of an object right it's a much more subtle body and yet that's where the kingdom of God is effective.

What do we bring it we bring our shadows you know just our need to the table to eat our nourishment in him to proclaim him as Lord to be washed clean by him and to be united with him presiding over this feast.

And then while we do that while we while we come to the table in our need we are at the same time proclaiming Christ is Lord.

Don't you see our proclamation of him as Lord is our need of him do you see that come to the table hungry and we eat that is our proclamation what do we bring hunger what does he bring the food and what do we do when we do that what does Jesus call it when you bring your hunger to him he calls it proclaiming him as Lord he calls it playing in the glorious refrain of heaven of who God really is bring your need bring your need listen to that refrain this Christmas season.

Okay are there any questions?

Great.

Let's pray Holy Father I pray that you would allow us to hear the the refrain of of you as Lord the one who satisfies us Lord let us be drawn towards it out of our need and play our part in it by bringing our need to you Lord this is what you're ordinarily like this is the purpose of your kingdom you meet us precisely where our need is in our sin, in our sickness, in the pains of our life you entered into those that you might bring us to you.

Lord let us live as a people who are in you.

Lift this up in Jesus' name Amen.

Paul writes in First Corinthians 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.

Holy Father, let us participate in this proclamation would you bless this meal where we bring it nothing but our need to it Lord we are satisfied in you we lift this up in Jesus' name Amen