Hagar & Ishmael

Good morning.

Today's reading is from Genesis 16, verses 1 through 6.

Genesis 16:1–6

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.

And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

Go into my servant, it may be that I shall obtain children by her.

And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife.

And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived.

And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.

And Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done to me be on you.

I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt.

May the Lord judge between you and me.

But Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your servant is in your power.

Do to her as you please.

Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathburn.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

A couple of announcements before we pray, and then get into that text, which is a bit strange, but here we go.

First of all, next week is our one-year anniversary of being in this building celebration.

Yeah.

I feel the same way.

Yeah, so it's actually it's kind of crazy and hard to wrap our uh hard to wrap my mind around.

We had one service in the building and then we uh shut down because of COVID.

And it was just a very strange way to come to a neighborhood.

So uh we're excited to celebrate having been here a year, God's provision for us to be here and our continued hope uh to minister uh in this neighborhood for generations.

So uh next week it's same service time and everything, you know, normal like that.

But we'll come in here and just have like a time of singing and celebration, and then we will move uh just kind of scatter throughout the building and pour out onto the front lawn, uh, weather permitting.

And uh it's BYOB, it's bring your own brunch.

Thanks, Mom.

The uh talks about that.

Yeah.

We uh uh so that's uh so just bring food and uh we'll provide coffee and uh water and that sort of thing.

Um and we're just gonna scatter and fellowship and eat together.

So that's the that's the plan.

Uh sound good?

So next week celebration.

Yeah, it'll be great.

Uh also uh the week after that, which is March 14th, Sunday, March 14th.

If you are a volunteer in Redemption Kids, then there's a training for you, a volunteer training, which will be right after the service from 11 to noon.

So it's just an hour.

And uh if you aren't able to make that and you are a volunteer in Redemption Kids, uh, then email Megan at redemptiondenver.com.

Uh, or you can just reach out to info.

My wife is Megan.

She spells her name wrong, so it can be hard to find the right email, but uh just let her know.

All right, let's pray, and we'll get into the text for today.

Holy Father, we praise you, the one who made it all.

Lord, we pray that you would speak directly to us through your word today.

That the difficulties that we see in the family and the relationships between Abram and Sarai and Hagar, Lord, let us see how you work through those.

And particularly let us see how you minister to the outcast, Lord, as we look more closely at the story of Hagar.

Lord, let us see your gospel and your heart towards us.

Let it displace our preconceived notions of who you are, and instead let us see who you are from your word, who you've shown us to be, who you've shown yourself to be.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The first question in the Westminster shorter catechism is what is the chief end of man?

Matthew, do you know it?

Matthew knew the three.

Oh man, never never mind.

Last week Matthew knew the verse, and so it was good.

Um, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Now, if that's true, and I think it is, then that means that we are the types of creatures that are dependent on God.

We aren't sufficient in ourselves in order to see the chief end of our of our lives realized.

For our lives to have any real meaning, it must be in relationship to God.

If we pursue our own glory, then we don't see the real end of our creation.

If we pursue joy in ourselves or in things of our own designs, then we won't find true joy.

And so the problem with our sin and with our fallen natures due to sin is that we don't think that it's good and desire a relationship to be a relationship with God because we realize we depend on Him.

Instead, we resent the fact that we depend on God to be satisfied.

Our natural disposition toward God providing us all things that we need, towards recognizing these realities, that it is only in God that we live and move and have our being.

Instead of responding to that in gratitude, we actually respond to it with resentment.

I don't want to have to need God.

I don't want to have to depend on Him.

I don't want anyone to be God over me.

I want to be able to describe for myself what joy is, create meaning for myself from my own disposition and experiences, and then go out and fulfill those things.

I don't want this to be something I depend upon, someone from outside of me, some God, to tell me what real meaning is.

See, we operate out of this type of resentment.

Resentment of our dependence on God.

It comes out in all sorts of ways.

And today we're looking at a story in which our resentment towards our dependence on God comes out and it basically tears apart a family.

It starts with resenting a dependence on God, as we'll see Sarai, who is Abram's wife in the story that we've been following in Genesis, she sees that she's going to have to depend on God for God to fulfill his promise of giving her and her husband offspring.

And in that dependence, she resents it and she says, This is something that I can just take into my own hands and not have to depend on God for.

So she takes control where she shouldn't take control.

And then we'll see that Abram abandons the responsibility that God has given him in the family.

And when he abandons that responsibility, that results in Hagar, the least powerful in the relationship, fleeing the authority that God has placed her under.

And so the whole family falls apart.

I think we can trace it towards this from this resentment of our dependence on God.

So that's what we're going to look at today.

We're going to look at the resentment that we have towards our dependence on God and how that flows through this family.

And then we are going to see God's heart for reconciliation.

Now, uh the story of Genesis, you can basically read as the first 11 chapters are the this prehistory uh kind of laying the groundwork for the way redemption will unfold.

Then the whole rest of the book, where we are now, it's just the story of one messed up family.

So if you think you are a part of a messed up family, this is full of good news for you.

Uh this is full of descriptions and understanding and wisdom, and then this great news that God is like irresistibly drawn to messed up families to bring reconciliation in those most difficult of relationships.

So that's what we're gonna see in the second part.

God's heart for these things.

Okay, so let's go ahead and get into the story.

Genesis 16, 1.

Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.

Okay, so you can feel already the tension that's built into just that opening sentence.

Sarai had borne Abram no children.

Why is that a big deal?

Because the promise of God to Abram is that he would have offspring that outnumber the dust of the earth and the stars of the heavens.

And likewise that he would, his offspring would be given this land that they're dwelling in now as just sojourners, which is the land of Canaan.

Now, this promise, as time goes on and it isn't fulfilled, puts more and more pressure on their faith in God's promises.

How can we trust that God is actually faithful when He's given us these promises and yet we see no fruit of it?

That's the pressure that they're experiencing in their hearts.

And the text has kind of painted them into a corner about this one particular promise, which is the offspring.

Last week we saw that when Abram questioned about if he really would receive the land, God performs this contract ritual to basically, God basically says, I will die if I am not faithful to this promise.

So he gives him his word in this most incredible way that we see with regards to the land.

Likewise, Abram asks if instead of his offspring, perhaps it wouldn't actually be his offspring, but he would just do a common practice of the day, which is adopting one of your servants so that they would become your heir.

And because him and Sarai had been unable to conceive, he asked God, Is that what you really mean by my offspring that I'll just adopt an heir?

But God promises, no, this will come from your own loins.

This will be your offspring.

And so the land is covered, and the fact that it will be Abram's offspring is covered.

But for Sarai, as they continue getting older, the likelihood that they will be able to conceive is getting less and less and less.

It's been 10 years now in Canaan.

And uh uh Sarai is approaching her 70s, she's unable to conceive at this point.

And so what they're experiencing is a situation in which the only way that God's promise will be able to be fulfilled is if God himself performs a miracle.

You see how God paints them into a corner?

He's saying, look, the only way out of this is to come face to face with your dependence on me, with your dependence on God.

Do you see that dynamic there?

Now we don't like to be brought face to face with our dependence on God.

We already talked about that a bit.

In fact, we resent it.

And so we're very clever in situations like that, where you can say, God has said, this is a promise that I have for you, and it is completely in my hands to give it to you.

And Sarai thinks to herself, what if it were in my hands, though?

And she maybe perhaps thinks through the terms of all the doors that have been closed and realizes God said that this would be Abram's offspring.

I haven't been able to provide the offspring, but God didn't say anything about me being the one who had the child.

Perhaps it could be Hagar, my servant.

Perhaps if we had a surrogate for this, then I could have offspring right away.

We could get this promise rolling, and I would be able to say that I'm a wife who fulfilled her duty of the promise of God and of providing my husband with an heir.

So that's exactly what happens.

She discovers the Hagar loophole.

Genesis 16, 2.

And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

Go into my servant.

It may be that I shall obtain children by her.

And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

Now, this practice at this time isn't an uncommon practice.

Uh this was uh there's in all sorts of ancient Near Eastern cultures, this is a practice that is referenced, uh, and it's something that was culturally common.

But this is something that is biblically immoral.

Uh, oftentimes we'll see throughout the Old Testament these this having of multiple wives, and we'll think, is this an okay thing?

Like is was polyg was polygamy just fine then?

And the answer is no.

Marriage has always been as it was established in the garden.

It's a marriage is something that's a creational norm, which means that it's built into the fabric of our created existence, to be one man and one woman, not to have any more brought into it than that.

And with this creational norm, we see that Sarai is saying, look, we can we can break this norm, and then we'll be able to get all of what we really want.

If we just step outside of what God has uh called us to do and the way that he's imposed on us that we need to act in our marriage, if we just step outside of that, then we'll be able to have what God is actually promising us anyway.

You can see how it could even be justified in her mind.

But look at this dynamic that's taking place.

Sarai is taking a false responsibility.

She's taking responsibility where she shouldn't be, which is God has said this is his promise, this is his to provide.

But out of her insecurity, she's saying, no, I will take this out of the norms of God and I will just take this into my own hands so that I am able to receive it under my control.

Likewise, she's taking control in her marriage in a way that's inappropriate, even advocating for their marriage to be broken in a way so that someone else can be brought in.

She's advocating for adultery in her marriage.

Do you see how she's taking control in this place that she shouldn't be?

And then move down a realm, and all of a sudden she's taking control in another place that she shouldn't be, which is in her marriage.

And then finally, she's taking control over her servant's body in a way that she shouldn't be.

As she looks at Hagar and says, I own you in such a way as a child that comes from you will just be mine.

Do you see this incredible overstep in the flow of the relationship?

She oversteps in her relationship with God, which causes an overstep in her relationship with her husband, which causes an overstep in her relationship with her servant.

It all flows together.

It's the same movement of resentment in her heart.

Now, it's easy for us to look back and think, well, that culture was just insane.

You know, they were so backwards with regards to putting all of this pressure on wives to provide an heir for their husbands.

We've transcended that sort of thing.

We don't make such absurd claims on women's bodies, or we don't make such absurd claims on uh women to provide an heir.

We don't value things like that in the same way.

We wouldn't see this type of backwards way of thinking in our culture.

But come on, guys.

That's not true.

We I we see, like, look, she's making this absurd sacrifice in her marriage to achieve what her culture describes as the place of fulfillment.

The way that she could be fulfilled in her life, according to her culture's narrative, was providing an heir to her husband.

That's the greatest thing a wife could do according to her culture's narrative.

Well, what are some of our culture's narratives?

We could pick a couple.

First one is we think that the fundamental uh uh uh way that a human is fulfilled is in sexual gratification.

We think that expressing ourselves and being fulfilled sexually is the highest achievement of human fulfillment.

That is the ends for which God created humanity.

And there's a story for why that happens.

It's because basically because of Freud.

I'm not even really kidding.

Like what we what happened was the human consciousness was psychologized, where we thought we were just minds and not bodies.

And then Freud comes along and says the only way to accurately interpret our psychology is if we only interpret it through the lens of our sexuality.

So, what's the most important feature of our identity?

It's the way that we choose to express our sexuality.

Now, that's something, that's an assumption that our culture just takes for granted.

That's why we only talk of sexual preferences, things that you like to do with other people sexually in terms of identity.

Have you ever wondered why it is our culture makes that jump?

It's because, well, it's because I mean it's Freud.

It's because we've become so intuitively Freudian in our thinking.

So why do you think we have so many hero adultery stories?

We have hero adultery stories in our culture because this is a person who casts off the constraints of their family in order to achieve the highest place of fulfillment, which is sexual fulfillment, living out the truth of their sexual identity.

So that's one example in which our culture is basically the same as Sarai here, willing to destroy the family in order to achieve your own fulfillment.

Or we could do something less charged, like startup culture.

Or like like hustle culture.

That's a thing.

Uh so it you consider what does startup and hustle culture say?

Like, how how much does Elon Musk sleep?

I don't know.

It's like six hours, okay.

Why do we know that?

We we Joe Rogan's podcast is why we know that.

But there's uh but it that that's like something we're interested in because what startup or hustle culture says is it is it is worth laying down every aspect of your humanity so that you can in the name of productivity and efficiency.

Productivity and efficiency is is the the the thing that's morally right to sacrifice all the rest of your humanity for.

So, you know, I I don't know how much uh time Elon Musk is spending with his kid, who's named after that plane or something.

Uh, but that's a legitimate part of life.

But we're saying, yeah, we'd be willing to destroy the family in the name of that higher moral calling, because that's where fulfillment actually exists.

Do you see how it's the same dynamic?

We see Sarai, you're so willing to destroy this the goodness of the family that you're a part of because of this backwards cultural movement.

And it's easy for us to say Sarai is insane.

No, she's like us.

Sarai is normal, is what Sarai.

Is in this story.

We're all insane.

So we see that this resentment starts to uh move throughout the whole family, even after she receives what she wants.

Look at this in Genesis 16, verse 4.

Genesis 16:4

It says, And he went into Hagar and she conceived.

And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.

So she gets what she wants.

Hagar conceives.

But when she realizes that Hagar conceived by Abram, now she looks upon her servant with contempt.

She's not happy that things are going according to her plan.

Instead, she's just expressing this contempt towards the person who she has taken control of in a terrible way.

Edwin Friedman is this psychologist who wrote a book that I quote frequently and really like called Generation to Generation.

And he presents these two ideas that are really important to grasp when we're interpreting a family dynamic.

One of them, which is what we're doing now, we're interpreting a family dynamic.

One of them is this idea of the identified patient.

So a lot of families will rally around someone who they have identified as the patient with the problem.

Okay, so this is like the black sheep of the family.

And they manifest the symptoms of the family dynamic.

It's easy to see Sarai right now as the identified patient.

Okay, she is uh acting contemptuously towards everyone.

If we continue down here, listen to um listen to to Sarai's attack of Abram in 16.5.

Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done to me be on you.

I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt.

May the Lord judge between me and you.

Sarai is attacking everyone.

Abram, who did what she asked him to do, Hagar, who did what she asked him to do, she's projecting this contempt that she is putting out there on everyone.

It's easy to see Sarai as this identified patient.

The one who look, if she just changed, then we'd have the problem solved.

But there's this other dynamic that Friedman points us towards in the family, which is when you find the identified patient, look for the symmetry, he calls it.

Look for the symmetry in the relationships.

If there's because that's what develops in relationships, that they find a state of balance and can continue.

There's a pursuer and a pursued.

If there's an anxious person, look for the reassurer.

If there's someone who's take charge in the relationship, look for the one who's along for the ride.

If there's an accuser in the relationship, look for the pacifier.

We've got a five-month old, we're always looking for pacifiers.

Genesis 16, 6.

This is what Abram says back.

Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your servant is in your power.

Do to her as you please.

Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from him.

Here's the point that I want to make.

Sarai may be the identified patient, but she is a part of a system in the marriage which is allowing this to happen.

What has Abram done throughout this whole story?

He's just gone along for the ride.

He sees Sarai in the beginning, and she's feeling really anxious and nervous.

It's becoming less and less likely they're being forced into dependence upon God.

And what does Abram do?

Does he reassure her?

Does this father of our faith, who's been commended for his faith by God, does he try and reassure his spouse towards that faith to bring her back in line with this experience of anxiety that she's feeling?

It makes sense for her to be feeling, by the way.

She's the one who can no longer have children.

She's the one who's really experiencing this dependence right now.

Uh what is it, what does he do to reassure her?

Nothing.

Does nothing to reassure her.

Then when she offers this idea, what if we just break the marital bed so that this thing can be satisfied?

Does he say, no, I'm not going to do that?

I'm going to remain faithful to God in my actions.

I'm going to protect us and our marriage.

No.

He just goes along with it.

What happens when Sarai starts lashing out at Hagar, the one who he he acts like, look look at this.

Says, behold, your servant is in your power.

Do to her as you please.

Yeah, Abram, you're neutral in this?

Remember, they've slept together at this point.

Hagar is carrying Abram's child.

Sometimes we read the Bible and it's like, that must have just been a thing, a Bible Times thing.

No.

This is as absurd as it sounds.

It's as absurd as it sounds.

He doesn't protect Sarai, he doesn't protect their marriage, and he doesn't defend Hagar.

So we might have identified Sarai as the problem.

Do you see?

What she did, that's hers.

It really is her wrong.

But if we're looking at the family and saying, what's the problem here?

There's a dynamic.

Do you see that?

It begins with throwing off the constraints of our dependence on God, and it ends with all subsequent relationships being fractured.

Sarai and Abram are fractured.

Abram from the family, or excuse me, Hagar from the family is fractured.

All of these relationships are fractured because we resented our dependence on God.

Where Sarai should have let go of control and Abram should have seized it, they both abdicated their callings from God.

Now, this is one of those moments where you know they're sitting, they sit down at dinner, and Hagar's there pregnant with Abram's wife.

Sarah's contemptuous towards everybody.

Abram's acting like he's not involved.

Hagar is just experiencing this deep contempt from Sarai, fearing for her safety.

You look at that type of a moment.

How do you fix that?

This is a pretty messed up dynamic, right?

We're pretty backed up against the wall.

Here's what I want us to see in the next couple of chapters, actually.

We're gonna see it in one example for one of them today.

God is uniquely drawn to this type of brokenness.

Our God is not the type of God who sees that type of brokenness and flees from it.

He is the type of God who sees that type of brokenness and rushes into it.

That is what he is like.

That's what he's like.

Over the next couple of chapters, we'll see that God comes to Abram and he calls him to a very specific, very committed action.

What does Abram need to do as he's been moving in this false neutrality and passivity?

He needs to be called to action.

And it's a committed one, it's circumcision as an adult.

We'll see God move in on Sarai and he'll move her from this closed-fisted cynicism that ironically laughs at God to an open-handed, joyful laughter at the provision of the Lord.

And we'll see him work with Hagar, and that's what we'll look at for the rest of today.

Hagar, this invisible victim of the situation, will be seen by God.

So let's start with that one.

Genesis 16, 7 through 8.

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.

And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?

She said, I'm fleeing from my mistress, Sarai.

The angel of the Lord found her.

And yet God goes and he finds her.

Isn't that great language?

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness.

It's on the way to Shur.

Remember, Hagar was Egyptian, and Shur is on the way into Egypt.

She's just going back home out of this.

And the way that God calls to her, he calls her Hagar, servant of Sarai.

See, he gives her her name and the position that he had given her in the world.

You can hear already in just his address towards Hagar what he's going to ask her to do.

Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?

He presses her right into her story.

And so she must answer after being called the servant of Sarai, what is her answer for where is she coming from?

Where is she going?

I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.

Well, God calls her in 16.9.

The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her.

That doesn't seem fair, does it?

Look, this is something that is difficult for us to wrap our minds around, I think, especially because we're pretty distant from a social structure like this one.

But what we see God doing is telling Sarai, the authority structures that I have placed in your life come from me.

So that when you are submitting to Sarai, you aren't submitting out of a place of humiliation.

You are submitting out of a place of submission to the most high God.

You are expressing your total and utter dependence, not on Sarai, when you go back to her, but on God who put you under Sarai's authority.

And he calls us into that authority, not for our bad, but for our good.

And he does that by giving her a promise for the offspring that she carries.

Genesis 16, 10, the angel of the Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.

Look, this runaway slave, this pregnant single mother running away from her abusive household, he meets and says, Lift your eyes towards the future.

There are multitudes that you carry.

You will be the mother of nations, he promises this woman.

And he draws her back in to his authority.

He says, I'm bringing you back into this position.

You know, when you break an arm, the way that you reset it is you put it back into the position of function.

He is saying, the place that I have placed you under, the authorities that I have placed you under, this is your position of function.

This is where you will work and thrive.

So he draws her back in there.

Do you see how he calls her towards a submission that amplifies her humanity?

We don't have concepts for that in our culture.

We think that the only way humanity is truly amplified and demonstrated is if they are given the position of power and authority.

The Bible operates in a completely different way.

It says, you really want to show your humanity, demonstrate how you're able to submit.

Because where is our humanity actually demonstrated?

What is the chief end of it?

It's in our dependence on the Lord.

God says that he should be named Ishmael.

They call him Ishmael.

Thanks.

And that means God hears.

And one of the promises that is given for Ishmael is he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.

Look, Ishmael will have a crazy life.

He'll kind of be a like opposite to the child of promise in Isaac.

But one thing that this servant is guaranteed is that he will be over against all his kinsmen.

Ishmael won't serve anyone.

You hear that?

Hear what that might mean for Hagar, who she's carrying?

Genesis 16, 13 through 14, it says, So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her.

You are a God of seeing.

For she said, truly, here I have seen him who looks after me.

Therefore the well was called Bir Lahi Roy.

It lies between Kadesh and Barad.

That translates to the well of the living one who sees me.

How does God rush in to bring healing to this family?

He sees the one who is unseen and he calls her back into the family.

He begins to piece this back together from the weakest up into the strongest.

Do you see that dynamic of how God moves in these situations?

How he's drawn into the brokenness of the family to bring redemption, to bring his healing.

And how does he do it?

He uses the weakest one.

And he sees her, draws her into it.

This is an amazing thing that we see God working through the submission of this woman Hagar in order to bring about a redemption of the family of promise.

It's amazing the way God works.

Now we know even more that God works this way for us and for our relationships and for the dynamics that we find ourselves in that just seem too complicated to ever be undone.

We know that God rushes into those places.

Because we got to see Jesus, who is also told by God to go and submit in a place that it is dangerous to go and submit, who leaves the heavens and comes and subjects himself to the earthly authorities of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and of the Roman Empire.

And in that submission is crushed.

And in that being crushed for us, we are brought into his family.

We know the heart of God for this.

We see it so clearly and most clearly demonstrated in Christ.

So with that, let's take a question.

Given Sarah's situation, wouldn't you align with her act of desperation when God didn't assure her of his promise?

Relatedly, how can we trust God when there's constant disappointment?

That's a great question.

I think this is the question of Genesis as we're moving through it.

When we started this, I referenced a quote describing how it is that we learn the faithfulness of God.

And that quote tied into this idea of scripture being primarily narrative.

Because the way that we learn the dynamic of our relationship with God is we see it played out in stories.

And when you see that the heroes of our faith find themselves constantly in situations that feel a lot like our situations, then we see the place that faith actually takes place in.

And all of a sudden we start to see: hey, we I don't feel like I've have any real assurance of this promise, or I feel like I'm facing a constant disappointment here.

Well, how are we encouraged by that?

We look at the word.

We say, you know what?

Others have felt the same way too.

And God followed through.

Others have felt have had their backs pressed up against the wall in just exactly like this, and even in more extreme circumstances.

And God has remained faithful.

Then we remember He'll do it again.

And what assurance do we have?

Well, we're about to perform one of them.

We're about to take communion together.

Now, if you're a Christian, we invite you to take communion.

And what we're doing when we take part in this is we're saying his body and his blood was poured out and offered to me.

When I take it, I am receiving an assurance of the faithfulness of God towards me.

That's why we do it once a week.

It's why we don't do it sporadically.

Because we need this reminder at least once a week.

And we take it all together to remember that some of us are experiencing a faith right now that is like walking on feathers, as I've heard it described this morning.

Others are just dredging through, barely able to make it, barely holding on through the disappointments.

But we come to the table together with this incredible joy that Jesus has offered himself for us, and now we can receive it.

So, with that, let me read from 1 Corinthians 11, 23 to 26.

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.

Come joyfully to the table.

Receive assurance that he has offered himself for you.

Take, eat.

Look at the heart of God towards the broken and suffering.

Holy Father, we pray that you would bless this time of communion.

And Lord, we praise you that you are the God who rushes into our suffering to bring reconciliation.

We pray that we would have hearts of humility to receive it.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.