SPEAKER_00: Uh well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Hannah, as Mike said.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it is such an honor to worship with you today.
SPEAKER_00: Um, my husband Mike Michael, that was confusing.
SPEAKER_00: My husband Michael and I have been friends with Mike for over a decade, and guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We have been hearing about Mike's church plant for over a decade.
SPEAKER_00: So, you all are a dream that God put in his heart a long time ago, and it's really encouraging to see that dream in 3D today.
SPEAKER_00: As a guest preacher, I was given the distinct privilege of getting to choose my own sermon text, which for a lectionary preacher is a big deal because we usually don't pick our sermon text.
SPEAKER_00: So I jumped at the opportunity to reflect with you on a real passion of mine, which is the Eucharist, or sometimes called the Lord's Supper or Communion.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know that I just wrote a book about this topic because receiving and celebrating the Eucharist has had a really profound impact on my faith and on my life.
SPEAKER_00: I'll say more about that in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: But because I am a lectionary preacher, I couldn't let today's assigned readings completely pass us by, because today we are celebrating Jesus' ascension to heaven, which is such an important and beautiful part of our redemption story.
SPEAKER_00: So in today's sermon, I will attempt to have my cake and eat it too.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you a little bit about the Eucharist and a little bit about the ascension.
SPEAKER_00: The good news is they really do go together, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus instituted this meal in anticipation of all that was to come.
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, his death and his resurrection, but also his return to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it's actually customary during Easter to revisit some of Jesus' last words to his disciples and to turn them over again in light of their fulfillment on the third day.
SPEAKER_00: So this morning, I want to revisit the Last Supper in that light, in the light of Easter.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to ask, what does this meal mean for us now that Jesus is alive and actually at the right hand of the Father?
SPEAKER_00: And how does it form and inform our lives today?
SPEAKER_00: How does this meal shape us as Christians?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna suggest three things to you.
SPEAKER_00: As resurrection people, we feast on Jesus' life, we feast in Jesus' absence, and we feast in anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we're headed.
SPEAKER_00: Together though, let me share with you a little more context about why the Lord's Supper has been so powerful in my life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a priest, I'm a professional church lady.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I would be excited about the Eucharist, but it actually began well before I was ordained.
SPEAKER_00: So I grew up, probably like many of you, in church, and I had a strong message of salvation as a child that went something like this: Jesus died to forgive our sins so that we can go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else hear some version of that message growing up?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not wrong, but it's very transactional.
SPEAKER_00: It's very focused on goods and services, right?
SPEAKER_00: I turn to Jesus to get something from him, to get my ticket to the good place.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord's Supper, this meal that Jesus gave us, it tells a slightly different story.
SPEAKER_00: It tells the story of a God who doesn't just give us a thing, but who gives us himself.
SPEAKER_00: A God who said, This is my body given for you.
SPEAKER_00: So over time, receiving communion helped me to realize the core message of the gospel isn't about the transaction of goods, but about the communion of persons.
SPEAKER_00: It's about the God who doesn't just give us a ticket to heaven, but who gives us himself, who invites us into fellowship with him.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest gift God has to give us is himself.
SPEAKER_00: And in the gospel, he gives us nothing less than that, nothing less than his very life.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look now to the Last Supper, where Jesus makes this abundantly clear.
SPEAKER_00: You probably know the Last Supper was not just a random dinner party that Jesus hosted for his friends, it was a Passover meal, a meal of remembrance, and also in some ways of reenactment of Israel's deliverance from slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And at this Passover meal, Jesus says to his disciples, I'm about to be betrayed unto death, but don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing this on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And then he takes the bread of the Passover and he gives it to them and he says, This is my body given for you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Jesus assures them that his death will not just be the tragic ending to an otherwise hopeful ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It won't just be the result of Judas' betrayal or an expression of Rome's power.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' death will be a gift.
SPEAKER_00: It will be Passover 2.0.
SPEAKER_00: In offering his body and blood to his disciples, Jesus makes clear, I am the Lamb who secures your freedom.
SPEAKER_00: So in this meal, we see the true nature of God's love for us and the true cost of his love.
SPEAKER_00: In becoming our Passover Lamb, Jesus shows that he loves us enough and in such a way that he takes it upon himself to rescue us, to accomplish our exodus, to secure our freedom.
SPEAKER_00: God does not send just a prophet with a message or a map with instructions.
SPEAKER_00: He sends himself.
SPEAKER_00: And he does not withhold this gift, not even a little bit, even at the cost of his own life.
SPEAKER_00: Now again, maybe you've been in church a long time and you hear this language about self-giving, Jesus giving us himself, and you hear it in kind of a substitutionary way, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus gave his life to pay for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: Again, that is true.
SPEAKER_00: But that's only part of what this means.
SPEAKER_00: So let me say more.
SPEAKER_00: In the original Passover, the lamb wasn't only a substitution, it was also a meal.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning the Israelites didn't just kill the lamb and spread its blood over the doorposts.
SPEAKER_00: They also ate the meat to be strengthened by it, energized for the journey ahead.
SPEAKER_00: So when we celebrate our Passover feast, it's important for us to remember that Jesus' self-donation doesn't only secure our forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: It's also our ongoing nourishment in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how we begin to see how this meal changes us.
SPEAKER_00: Because this isn't just about receiving something Jesus did on our behalf, but about becoming one with Him, communing with Him in such a way that His life, His nature, His character begins to shape and fuel our own.
SPEAKER_00: Through our communion with Him, we become those who love as God loves.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the whole point here is that we don't do that in our own strength, but as those who feast on the strength that God has provided.
SPEAKER_00: We feast on his life, and then that life begins to live through us.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever known someone who's like really, really productive or prolific?
SPEAKER_00: We're in DC, so you probably know a few people like that.
SPEAKER_00: In my imagination, this person wakes up every morning at 5 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: to exercise.
SPEAKER_00: They run their own business, they've published five books, they take their kids backpacking, and they make their own sourdough bread, also.
SPEAKER_00: I know a guy like that.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the front row.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what I often think to myself?
SPEAKER_00: What does that guy eat for breakfast?
SPEAKER_00: Coffee.
SPEAKER_00: You are what you eat.
SPEAKER_00: And the Christian claim, as bizarre as it has always sounded, is that we eat Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives are sustained and energized by the self-giving love of God.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is that over time, our lives begin to reflect this in a way that other people can see, and in a way that nourishes and strengthens them.
SPEAKER_00: So we become those who don't just receive the Eucharist, but who are learning how to live it.
SPEAKER_00: We're learning how to say to our friends and family and neighbors and colleagues, this is my body, this is my life given for you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we are learning how to love the same way we have been loved because we feast on Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: Second point, as resurrection people, we now feast in Jesus' absence.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' first disciples had the privilege of receiving communion from him face to face at the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: And then of seeing him alive again in the flesh, right?
SPEAKER_00: Touching the scars on his hands and the wound in his side.
SPEAKER_00: But from the beginning, Jesus understood what they didn't, which is that his victory over death would not reunite them in the way they imagined that it would.
SPEAKER_00: Think back to Easter morning when Jesus instructed Mary Magdalene not to cling to him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he had not yet ascended to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I were Mary Magdalene, I might feel a little bit jerked around by this, to be honest.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, imagine what it would have been like for them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is alive, he's back, but he's leaving again.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one, he did it, but now we don't get to follow him in the only way we've ever known.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus' ascension is good news for God's people because it means that our advocate is now in heaven, interceding for us, and that the Spirit has been given to empower us for our mission to the world.
SPEAKER_00: We heard that in Acts 1 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you'll hear more about that on Pentecost next week.
SPEAKER_00: But today I want to point out that Jesus' ascension means that he is absent from us in a way that does still hurt a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: He is not here in the way that he once was and will be one day again.
SPEAKER_00: As Anglicans, we often speak of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
SPEAKER_00: We just talked about that, feasting on Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_00: But I also believe in the real absence of Christ in the Eucharist.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean at this table, where we proclaim the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the rebirth of all creation, we also proclaim that things are not yet as they should be.
SPEAKER_00: And that they won't be as they should be until Jesus comes again.
SPEAKER_00: So at this table, our hunger is filled, but not fully.
SPEAKER_00: At this table, we come into contact with a hunger that won't be fully filled in the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: We come to this table and we learn to cry out, come quickly again, Lord Jesus, so we can feast with you face to face.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, at church and at the table of the Lord, we have permission and even the responsibility to name what is still broken and still missing among us.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how that lands with you, but for me it was a huge relief.
SPEAKER_00: Because I grew up in a Christian subculture that emphasized God's blessings and all the happy endings available to those who follow him.
SPEAKER_00: But I also grew up watching my father die slowly of an aggressive form of cancer.
SPEAKER_00: And for a long time I didn't know how to reconcile those two stories.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know how to hold my hope in God's power to do miracles alongside of my grief over the miracles that didn't come, those things that remain irreparably broken.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know how to hold them both together until I started coming to the table where I was invited to taste both fulfillment and longing.
SPEAKER_00: You probably don't need me to tell you that trauma begets trauma, and that in this world we are swimming in it.
SPEAKER_00: And the Christian story does mean redemption is available now, in the middle of that.
SPEAKER_00: Resurrection and renewal are here now.
SPEAKER_00: But that's only part of our story.
SPEAKER_00: The other part of the story is that death and decay and dysfunction still haunt us.
SPEAKER_00: That people we love are still in graves, that we are still beset with sin and addiction and illness.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, renewal is real, but so is our longing for that renewal to be complete for the day Jesus returns to finish his work and to feast with us again face to face.
SPEAKER_00: I think the first Christians had an advantage in understanding this because they watched Jesus leave.
SPEAKER_00: So for them, their earliest celebrations of the Lord's Supper were truly equal parts remembrance and longing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they remembered his life poured out for them, and they longed for the day that they would sit at table with him again.
SPEAKER_00: They understood on a visceral level that until that day of Jesus' return, we feast in his absence.
SPEAKER_00: And we do feast on him.
SPEAKER_00: He is really present to us as we gather around the table.
SPEAKER_00: We remember him and we are remembered, right?
SPEAKER_00: Reunited to him and to each other as we receive this gift by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But we also gather together in longing for that day he spoke of in verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it to you again.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So this leads to our last point.
SPEAKER_00: As resurrection people, we feast in anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: We feast on Jesus' life, we feast in his absence, and we feast in joyful anticipation of what's to come.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts 1.9, we are told that Jesus was lifted up and a cloud took him out of the disciples' sight.
SPEAKER_00: And that apparently they they kind of stood around gazing for a little while afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they were looking for another sight of him.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they didn't want to believe he was really gone.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they were just kind of stunned.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 10, we read, While they were still gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I think in that moment, God must have sent angels to comfort these confused and sad disciples.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the Holy Spirit yet, but he sent angels to comfort them, to assure them that the one who had been faithful to his promises will continue to be faithful as they wait for those promises to be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus who was taken up from you will come in the same way again.
SPEAKER_00: This world that you love, that he loves, this world that is still fractured by sin and death, will one day be fully restored.
SPEAKER_00: This life that animates you now, this life that strengthens and sustains you, this life will one day swallow up all of that death within himself.
SPEAKER_00: And the dead will be raised, imperishable.
SPEAKER_00: One day, they said, this absence will be over, and you will see him again.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest gift God has to give us is himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's already given it in his life on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He continues to give himself every time we come to this table, hungry for resurrection, hungry for the fuel to live as he lived among us.
SPEAKER_00: And one day he will come again.
SPEAKER_00: He will give himself to us in the flesh, and we will sit at table with him.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the book of Revelation puts it.
SPEAKER_00: One day God himself will make his dwelling place with us.
SPEAKER_00: He will dwell with us, and we will be his people.
SPEAKER_00: And God himself will be with us as our God.
SPEAKER_00: And we're told on that day he will wipe every tear from our eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And death will be no more.
SPEAKER_00: There shall be no mourning, nor crying, except happy tears, maybe, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away.
SPEAKER_00: So for now we take and eat in anticipation of those things.
SPEAKER_00: As we celebrate our sacred Passover feast, we are strengthened with a taste, a small taste of this hopeful future.
SPEAKER_00: We're conformed into his image, we're brought into the shape of this self-giving love of God.
SPEAKER_00: And we grow hungrier still for his return to make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know all of your stories.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard a little bit of hers today.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what each of you is carrying as you come to the table this morning, but he knows.
SPEAKER_00: And so as you come, I invite you to reflect on what particular hunger or need you bring with you today.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe what you need most is just a reminder of God's self-giving love.
SPEAKER_00: That he does not withhold himself from you, but has already given all.
SPEAKER_00: That he still gives all to nourish you.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you come seeking strength on the journey of following him.
SPEAKER_00: You want to become what you eat, to be conformed into his image, so that your life will continue to reflect his in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe what you need most today is that permission to name what's broken and what still hurts in your life or in the world.
SPEAKER_00: To receive this bread as just a foretaste, just a promise of what's to come.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to come today with permission to get in touch with your hunger and your desire to say, come quickly, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: However, you come, remember this the greatest gift God can give you is Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And as you come, He will give you nothing less.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.