From Midnight to Daybreak: Resurrection at the Lord's Table

Main standing, we will go to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

I'll be reading verses 7 through 16. I'm sorry, 7 through 12.

So if you're there, if you want to follow along, Acts chapter 20,

Acts 20 · chapter mention

beginning with verse 7. And this is, remember, this is God's holy and inspired word.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread,

Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged

his speech until midnight.

There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered,

and a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep,

as Paul talked still longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.

But Paul went down and bent down over him, and taking him up in his arms said,

Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.

And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with

them a little while longer until daybreak, and so departed.

And they took the youth away alive and were not a little comforted.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can be seated. And let's pray together.

Holy Spirit, we ask now that you would help me Help us to hear,

see, and understand your word,

And in it, be drawn to greater and greater love And devotion to Jesus Christ,

our Savior In whose name we pray, amen,

So we're back to Acts chapter 20, verse seven. And I'm just gonna stay only

Acts 20 · chapter mention

on verse seven. I'm gonna move a few verses further, not much,

but a few verses further.

And I wanna ask you the question, the title of the sermon is,

From Midnight to Daybreak, that's what this little pericope or section of scripture

is about, From Midnight to Daybreak, End the Lord's Supper.

So I want you to be consciously aware that I'm not just squeezing in the Lord's

Supper because I really wanna end with something about the Lord's Supper.

I want you to notice that this little story itself is situated in the context of the Lord's Supper.

Actually, like bookends, this little section, they're breaking bread.

The scene happens, and then they break bread, and Paul leaves.

So the breaking of bread in this situation is very central.

And we should notice that from the beginning of our study in the book of Acts,

breaking bread has been central to the life of the church itself.

If you can remember, not been that long ago, maybe a little over a year,

Acts chapter 2, it says this, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

and the fellowship, to breaking the bread and prayers.

Remember, at that time, we said this would have summarized the very life and

ministry of the church, the very heart of what it means to be an apostolic church.

Doctrine, apostolic doctrine and teaching, the word, fellowship,

and the sacrament, breaking bread, as well as prayers.

So now they are here, verse 7, on the first day of the week.

Last week, we said it's not incidental, but it's actually a direct part of what

now the apostles are wanting us to do.

On the first day of the week is when we worship. It's Sunday or the Lord's Day.

It's the day of resurrection.

And there's also no small coincidence. I'm starting to talk like Luke,

and he always has an understatement. They were in no way small. There was no small joy.

But it's no small coincidence that the first day of the week,

the resurrection day, when Paul's outlining what happens there,

that resurrection is at the heart of the story as well.

Breaking bread and resurrection on the Lord's day, central to what it means

to come together on the Lord's day and worship.

This day of rest is, again, remember from last week, more than just a physical rest,

although it's a blessing that we can use that rest from our labors,

but this is a spiritual rest, a theological rest, a messianic Christ-centered

rest, where we find on this day, the first day of the week on Sunday,

the whole meaning of life.

I don't mean to sound like a philosophy professor. You know,

what is the meaning of life? But on this Lord's Day, all of you,

all of us are directed to the true source and meaning of our life, Jesus Christ himself.

And it's sealed at the end of the service with the breaking of bread, as we'll see.

So let's look at the story. So the story, and what I want to do,

just so you know in advance, I'm not just trying to play allegorical tricks

and symbols and so forth.

There are markers in this story that I pay attention to.

When I read the New Testament, I pay attention to where they are,

what's said, what time of the day it is, what happens, who's there,

all of the contextual things that are required to study a passage of Scripture,

and we look at those things, and then we look at other sections of Scripture

to see if there's any connective meaning to those things.

And sometimes what happens is that those identifying markers in a literary sense,

like midnight, resurrection, breaking bread, upper room, all those things,

they don't fundamentally change the meaning.

I'm not going to trick you and say, well, look what I found in the upper room

and look what I found at midnight. I'm not going to try to do that,

but it will deepen, I think, our understanding of what's happening in the story

and our understanding even of what happens when we break bread together in the Lord's succor.

So the story is on the evening of the first day of the week,

and remember, Sunday was not a legal holiday until even after Constantine.

Later, Constantine would make Sunday an actual day of rest in the Roman Empire.

It was developed further on no festivals, no pagan festivals, and so forth.

At this time, the Christians were meeting on that Lord's Day basically whenever

they could, early in the morning. It looks like sometimes they would later in the evening.

Here we have a story where they're meeting later in the evening.

And you'll notice the way Paul or the way Luke structures the story.

The church on the first day of the week as they're gathering.

Now, you don't see it in the English, but it's very fascinating.

This is a section, verses 7 through 12, that's filled with participles.

You say, well, what is this, a grammar class? No, but when you read a story,

sometimes you like to think of things in a sequence. This happened,

and then number two, this happened, and then number three, this happened.

But luke deliberately puts participles in it so that the whole scene itself

is not something we can sequence out You'll notice that when we get to it on

the first day of the week when we're get when we were gathered That's a participle

as we were gathering to break bread.

So there's that's what's happening. That's ongoing Paul talked with them.

That's also there's a series of participle.

He prolonged his speech Sorry preachers do that. They went a long long time.

And the later at the end, it says, and when we had gone up and had broken bread

and eaten, he conversed with them.

So there are these bookends of breaking bread at the beginning and breaking

bread at the end. And then the story without a clear sequence,

because sometimes when you read it, you're thinking, wait, when did Paul do this?

He's teaching. He goes down. He resurrects the kid. He goes back up.

And next thing you know, he's teaching. And it doesn't seem clear in terms of

a sequence because Luke is not concerned with the sequence.

These series of participles, as an ongoing matter, show us that the whole scene

here is about resurrection and breaking bread.

And he gives us markers to that along the way. It looks like the story,

and you can't see that also in the English because it says there were a lot

of lamps or lights, but those would be like torches.

So they're in this room, in the upper room, and there's a lot of torches,

which the Greek seems to indicate would be giving great light, but also great fumes.

I don't know if some of you are sensitive to diesel or petrol smells or so forth,

But you get into a room where there's nothing but torches, and the room starts to fill with fumes.

It looks like this kid, Eutychus, who the description of him as being a young

man is probably, the Greek is not exactly clear, but he uses two words,

probably between the age of 7 and 14.

So maybe a 10-year-old boy, let's say, a little boy.

He can't stand the smell of all the fumes in the room, so he goes to the window and...

A bit of speculation, but certainly he's at the window. And certainly something

is described as overcoming him, a deep sleep. He's overwhelmed.

It's not that the sermon was so boring that he got sleepy, but he was overwhelmed

with something. Probably the fumes in the room were not exactly sure.

Two times Luke stipulates that the sleep was overcoming him.

It was overwhelming him. There's something happening to this boy in the same

time that Paul is preaching that is overwhelming, overcoming him,

to the point that he finally falls three stories, three stories up and dies.

And so he's overcome and he falls and he dies. Now, Paul makes his way down

to the scene. And it's interesting, the same word in Greek that's used for the

boy falling down, proskuneo, falls down. Paul also falls down.

Paul goes down. Then it says he falls down. He bows down over him and goes over

him and takes him up and embraces him in his arms.

The boy fell down to his death. Paul went and fell down towards this young man's resurrection.

He covered him and he brought him up. It's a lot like the story of what Elijah

did in 1 Kings 17. Remember with the widow, remember?

Okay, so it's a story tucked away in the Old Testament. But 1 Kings 17,

it says, and he said to her, give me your son.

So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room.

That's interesting too. There's a note of an upper room.

So there's a lot of interesting literary connections of what's going on.

In the upper room where he was staying and laid him on his bed.

Then he cried out to the Lord and said, oh Lord God, my God,

you have already brought tragedy on this widow with whom I lodged by killing her son.

And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the

Lord and said, oh Lord, my God, I pray, let this child's soul come back to him.

Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah and the soul of the child came back

to him and he revived, he was resurrected. And Elijah took the child,

took him up like Paul and brought him down from the upper room into the house

and gave him to his mother.

And Elijah said, see your son lives. And she knew then that the Lord was the

true God and she kept Elijah there.

Again, this story, hearkening back to the very story of the prophet Elijah,

is not clear on the chronology.

They're gathered on the first day of the week. Again, as they're breaking bread

and as Paul is preaching, as this happens, the boy falls out,

dies, Paul gets him, goes back, and then it almost sweeps back to saying,

and now Paul's back at it again.

He continues to preach. Then they break bread and the daylight comes.

Daylight comes and he goes off.

Luke writes the story of a worship service, breaking bread, breaking bread,

that's sandwiched in between the worship services, the scene of the young man

dying and then being resurrected.

And it's all sandwiched within the context of breaking bread.

They were breaking bread, verse seven. Verse 11, Paul had gone up and had broken

bread and eaten, conversed, daybreak came and so he departed.

So there's something that Luke

is highlighting about the breaking of bread and this particular story.

It's woven into the scene of this story Where the church is meeting Listening

and worshiping to word and sacrament.

And then you'll notice also another literary marker, I think helps to highlight

some things, is this constant phrase that you see when you encounter big events.

We've seen it in Acts already, and that is the phrase, midnight, midnight.

It's a marker that by now, as you read, certainly a Jewish reader who heard

the story would have immediately said, oh, midnight, oh, that's Passover.

That's where it originated. The whole idea of God coming in judgment, that's Passover.

Also, again, I'll draw your attention to that because in our text,

they're eating the Lord's Suffer the breaking bread together.

So midnight, Paul emphasizes the point of reaching midnight.

Midnight then becomes something of a point of life and death, of life and death.

Luke himself as an author, even in his gospel, mentions this in passing sometimes

because the Jewish audience would have been aware that midnight was the special time.

It's been, sorry to say, now that you see all the ghouls and the goblins that

are out for Halloween, this sense of the importance of midnight as a haunting

hour, as a dangerous time has been co-opted by many of our horror stories, right?

You know, when Dracula or whoever's about to come and they're all in the room and.

Waiting for those 12 rings because something is about to happen at midnight

is co-opted from this very idea, from this very biblical scene in which midnight is important.

Luke, for instance, writes in Luke 11, 5, and he said to them,

which one of you has a friend who will go to him at midnight and say,

friend, lend me some loaves. Maybe you've read that story and never even noticed.

Maybe he just means, oh, it's late at night. Well, no, it's a moment of life

and death. It's a moment of truth for this neighbor and for the one who won't

give up, the one who keeps on knocking and wakes up the whole family.

In Luke 12, he also mentions, he said, what if the servant, and this is something

that the other gospels record as well, when he warns the virgins,

keep your wicks trimmed, keep yourself ready, keep oil in the lamp,

because you never know when the bridegroom may come.

And Luke says, what if he comes in the second watch or the third watch,

which happens to be midnight?

So it's this moment of truth. And we've seen it already in Acts chapter 16,

Acts 16 · chapter mention

where Luke records the story of Paul and Silas praying and singing hymns and

being released from the dungeon. Again, resurrection from the dead.

He says, verse 25 of 16, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing

hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly an earthquake came.

And verse 33, it also says that the jailer was baptized at the same time.

He took them to the same hour of night. So this is within the hour of midnight,

and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once. He, remember,

and his family, because covenant baptism, household baptism is there.

Just a little reminder for all of us ex-Baptists but he and his household were

baptized during the hour of midnight that was the moment of life and death that was the very moment,

the climactic moment and of course that derives from the story from Exodus from

which our Passover meal comes and to which the Lord's Supper is also connected.

In Exodus chapter 11 then God said to Moses thus says the Lord about midnight

Exodus 11 · chapter mention

I will go out into the midst of Egypt,

and all the firstborn of the land shall die From the firstborn of Pharaoh who

sits on the throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind

the hand mill, even firstborn animals.

Sure enough, in Exodus 12, 29, it says, And it came to pass at midnight that

the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of

Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the firstborn of the captive.

So Pharaoh rose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians.

And there was a great cry in Egypt where there was not a house,

where there was not one dead.

In other places in scripture, Samson did something at midnight Ruth approached

Boaz at midnight, midnight, midnight

There was even a prayer time for the Jewish people, the third watch.

Which was midnight. Are you with me? You think midnight's important.

He's like, okay, pastor, go on, midnight, we got it.

So midnight, that's one marker. The other marker I think is the,

and by the way, that will draw us back to the Exodus paradigm,

that whole moment of life and death when the only distinction between the Egyptians first born

and the Jewish first born was the blood of the lamb.

That was the only difference. When that death angel came, he was coming down

and when he saw the blood, He went away and went over.

He passed over and headed for anyone else who was not covered by the blood of

the lamb from which we celebrate in our Passover meal, that great Exodus event.

We also see that this is happening in the upper room. I don't wanna make too

big deal of this, but it's important now. By now, you see upper room,

upper room, all throughout the New Testament. What's going on with this upper room?

Some theologians have said, well, it's symbolic as a mountain or a place to meet with God.

Not sure I buy that, but it certainly was a place where significant events were

happening in the New Testament, beginning with the ministry of Jesus himself.

Even in Acts, remember what happened at the very beginning of Acts?

They needed to select an apostle to replace Judas. And when did they do it?

It says here, and when they heard that he had entered, they went up to the upper

room and there where they were staying. Excuse me, where did they do it?

In an upper room. That was the moment when they chose him. Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

It happened in those days that she

became sick. Tabitha, this is also a resurrection story in the upper room.

They laid her in the upper room, and Peter arose and went with them.

When he had come, they brought him into the upper room. There's something about

this upper room scene that we're supposed to pay attention to.

Now, not to the point that we're obsessed with the upper room to the point that

we actually, in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Scottish Covenanters,

when they first came to America, they built their churches, and all of the churches

from the entry, you had to go upstairs.

He had to go a second level up because that was the upper room.

I'm not suggesting that we start modifying church architecture because of that,

but certainly they were catching something of the flavor of the importance of an upper room.

And they went to this upper room and significant events happened.

Of course, this parallels the ministry of Jesus himself.

Where did the Passover, when Christ instituted the Lord's Supper,

where did it happen? In the upper room.

It says in Luke 22, this is also Luke's words, say to the teacher,

the teacher says to you, where's the guest room where I may eat the Passover

with my meals? And he will show you a large upper room furnished to prepare it.

And they went and found out what they had told him. Certainly,

the upper room represents, if nothing less, the very place by which Jesus instituted

the Lord's Supper itself.

And in our stories that we're seeing in Acts, the upper room is representing

that place where significant redemptive events are occurring,

not least here, is the Lord's Supper.

Their meeting on the first day of the week, their meetings, their worship is now summarized.

By the way, you can just say, as Luke will start doing, a worship service,

instead of saying worship service, they said they broke bread.

It's what they did. It was so central to the life and worship of the early church

that they would refer to a worship service as simply breaking bread.

Now, we also know that Paul is preaching and teaching, so there's word but there's

always word and sacrament there's never just word by itself there's never just

speaking in fact if anything in the book of acts you see more more prominence

to a worship service connected to breaking bread,

we always need the word we always need it taught teach like my grandson we always need it taught.

And we don't do the lord's supper without the word nor should we but certainly

breaking bread is central to apostolic worship and praise and there's a centrality

to the Lord's Supper to all of New Testament life as highlighted by our story.

And the connection that we're to see here is that resurrection is also part of this.

Sometimes when people celebrate the Lord's Supper, they only think about the

death of Jesus Christ, death and death and crucifixion. And so sometimes the

Lord's Supper can become this kind of.

Somber, sober experience in which there's no real joy.

But here we're connecting, or Luke is connecting, the sacrament of the Lord's

Supper, the breaking of bread to resurrection light.

That's why the story starts at midnight, that moment of light and life and death,

has a story of a boy dying and resurrected and ends with daybreak, hallelujah.

There's light at the end of this. There's hope because of the resurrection.

And it's all taking place in the context of the Lord's Supper, of breaking bread.

We sometimes, as Protestants, we want to be so careful of not sounding Roman

Catholic that we fail to highlight the centrality of this meal.

This is a central symbol of who we are as a people.

And as an apostolic church, we see here, we should also see the Lord's Supper

as a central part of our life and our community and of our hope.

It's significant. It's important. And breaking breads in this story Acts like

bookends to the whole story It began with breaking bread It ended with breaking

bread And in between is this glorious scene This glorious story of resurrection,

Breaking bread is central to the fellowship Acts chapter 2 I said that fellowship

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The apostles doctrine fellowship Breaking bread Verse 46 said So continuing

daily with one accord in the temple And breaking bread from house to house Breaking

bread The Lord's Supper is central to who we are.

Breaking bread is central to who Jesus was as well.

We see here the bread of Passover has now become the bread of the Lord's Supper.

It's associated with redemption from Egypt originally, and now it's associated

with our own exodus from sin and slavery through Jesus Christ.

And here we see with light, especially at the end of this story,

the Lord's Supper reminds us that this day, the Lord's day,

is a day of resurrection and hope and a day that's sealed week by week,

time after time, sealed by the hope of the resurrection we have in Jesus Christ,

a picture of our own exodus. That's why...

Call it what you want, Lord, sufferer, Eucharist. I like the word Eucharist,

not because of its Roman Catholic connotation, but because the word Eucharisto

in Greek means, I give thanks.

When you come to this table, when we come to this table Sunday by Sunday, we give thanks.

We praise the Lord. We have been given the body and blood of the Lord Jesus

Christ as a central sign and seal of our life in Christ, a picture of who we

are and who we have become.

I've been reading recently, some of you actually know him personally.

Matthew Colvin wrote a book called The Lost Supper.

The Lost Supper, excellent work, where he's digging around in the second temple

Judaistic practices of the Passover and what that might mean for us and how

we might understand the Lord's Supper and the symbolism that's involved there.

Central to this supper is resurrection life.

One of the things that Colvin and another theologian, Dalve,

points out, as you, and have you ever wondered this? You know,

when it says Jesus blessed the bread and broke it, why did he break it?

Why did the Jews do that at Passover? There were, according to,

it's a little bit speculative, but according to almost all the Jewish sources,

there would be three matzah breads. The one in the middle would be picked up,

and whoever's overseeing the Seder meal would break the bread.

First, he would bless it. That's why it says the Lord blessed the bread and broke it.

And the blessing would be in Hebrew, Baruch Atah Adonai Elohu.

He would say this, blessed are you, O Lord, our God.

You're sovereign over all You are the one who makes bread to come forth from

the earth And then he would break it And the broken piece of bread was taken

And was hidden away in a napkin or a container somehow And,

Jewish people today hide it for the children to find It's sort of a bit of a

prize and present Passover meal.

But the broken bread was hidden. Why was it hidden? And why did Jesus,

when he broke the bread, say, this is my body?

The reason they would hide the broken bread is because Messiah had not come.

There was no life. There was no hope. Messiah hadn't come yet.

So the broken bread was hidden away.

And various traditions do various things with it. We don't know.

But the one thing we know is it was hidden in the hope that one day that broken

bread would come and Messiah would come and he would feed his people.

And when Jesus blessed it, Jewish tradition, broke it, said, this is my body.

Sometimes we get all caught up in this. Is it the real presence?

Is it transubstantiation? Is it this? One thing we know for sure is Jesus took

that bread, which symbolized the hope and coming to Messiah.

And he said, I'm Messiah.

I'm the bread of life. And central to the meal is the hope we have to have real, true, new life.

Rescue, Exodus from sin and Satan and rescue toward new life in Jesus Christ.

And we're to do it in remembrance of him, the Bible says.

But it's interesting. Let me, again, adjust our understanding a bit.

It's not our remembrance of him, right? So many times the Lord's Supper is like,

well, I better really concentrate.

I got to really turn the concentration wheels on so that I'll remember Jesus.

But it's interesting when signs and seals are given in the covenant,

oftentimes the Lord presents these signs, not so much for us to remember, although we do,

But for him to remember And the remembrance and the memorial that takes place

in this supper is not how hard you concentrate On how sinful you are Imagine

if you think that way then then what you do is you end up saying well, this is so important,

And I need to remember so hard and think so hard We better not have it every

week because I won't be able to remember I won't be able to concentrate.

I won't be able to think about all the things I need to think about Well,

what if the sign and seal was given to encourage us That god remembers of course.

God remembers. We're going to study the story of Noah and the ark and the rainbow

here with our Thursday release time Bible study for the little kids.

And as I was looking over that story, I was thinking of the rainbow.

But guess what? In Hebrew, it's not called a rainbow.

We just look at the colors and say, that's a rainbow. Well, that's what we call

it. But in Hebrew, the word was literally bow. It was a military bow.

And it's interesting when you Look at the story. It's a military bow that's

curved upward to heaven.

That's odd. It should seem odd to us. Here's a bow, an outstretched bow that's

pulled back and sprung tight and aimed at heaven.

That's interesting. You think, well, what's going on? When we see a rainbow,

we're like, yeah, I'm sorry, by the way. So sad that the rainbow has been co-opted

by queer culture. So bizarre.

A little bit dangerous for queer culture to use the rainbow because it's a military weapon.

It's about judgment. And he placed the bow in the sky as a picture of a warrior

with a bow that's ready to shoot an arrow.

And notice what the text says in Genesis 9. I just find this fascinating,

especially with regard to the Lord's Supper.

It says this, I will establish my covenant with you that never again shall all

the flesh be cut off from the waters of the flood, and never again shall there

be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the sign of the covenant

that I make between me and you and every living creature with you for all generations.

I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

When I bring the clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, ready? I will remember.

What? I thought it was for us. I mean, I don't know about you,

but I love going to waterfalls. My wife and I used to travel and go to waterfalls,

good waterfalls. No matter where you stand, you can see the mist come up and

you see a rainbow and you're like, ah, I remember.

And I thank God he's a God that will never judge the earth like that.

But you'll notice what it says.

I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature

of all flesh, and the water shall never again destroy the earth.

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it.

And I will remember the everlasting covenant that I've made between you and

every living creature in the earth.

This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me.

Isn't that fascinating?

Maybe when the Lord's Supper says, do this as a memorial, do this as a remembrance,

that what should encourage us

so much is not how hard you concentrate to remember. Did I forget a sin?

I remember thinking that as

a kid, like if I go to the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner, I'm dead.

Because I didn't even want to repent at the time. I just knew we did it four

times a year that because people thought you got to really get ready to everything

needs to be uncovered. But what if it's not about that?

What if this body and blood is to remind Christ that he remembers you?

What an encouragement. Nothing depends on you when you come to the supper.

You can't concentrate hard enough. You can't ask for forgiveness of sins hard

enough. You can't do anything.

You simply come and receive the blessings of the Lord and be encouraged and

be confirmed and be strengthened that Jesus Christ himself remembers you in this meal.

What a different view. What a liberating view.

What a view in which we can come with joy and say, thanks be to God.

You are the God who feeds me with everlasting food and rest.

It means that in the Lord's Supper, there's real grace you're about to receive

as you come by faith and it's not dependent on you.

If it were, none of us would receive any grace from the sacrament.

It's all dependent on the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that he remembers

for us because it's what he has done and continues to do for us.

There's nobody with sin too powerful for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus

Christ to overcome it, and he promises you here in this meal as you come to

it, he will overcome. He has overcome.

When he took that broken piece of bread and said, this is my body,

he's saying to all of us, I am the bread of life.

Come, all you who are weary and heavily, come and eat.

Taste and see that the Lord is good, and he will remember you.

Think on that as we take the Lord's Supper in just a moment. Let's pray.

Lord God, how we thank you for this story, the day of resurrection and the story

of resurrection. and all sandwiched between the beautiful breaking of bread

that reminds us of our Passover hope through Jesus Christ. Lord,

as we come to this table, give us grace.

Feed your people this morning. Help us to end this endless cycle of trying to

think that whatever we do is never good enough for this table.

We come to you, O Lord, empty-handed to this sufferer. We feed on you.

We need you to remember us. And we thank you that as we come to this meal, you do remember us.

You have rescued us from the bonds of slavery to sin Shattered the darkness

of midnight And have brought resurrection daylight for our lives Even in this

supper We beg you, Lord, fill us with your grace As we participate in this time,

Whether there's a memorial to your death and burial And to your resurrection,

This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.