Riding on a donkey, storming the halls of empire, facing undesirable political retribution, holding us close in the chaos, God is with us.

From the moment last fall when we sang “O Come O Come Emmanuel” and began our year with Advent, we have been moving toward confrontation, knowing, believing, remembering “God with us.”

This meal, then, is also God’s way to be with us. We share bread and wine because Jesus did and said that we should also.

We’ve heard the story.

The night he was about to be arrested, tried in a bogus court, executed by the state in collusion with religious leaders,

Jesus gathered for a final meal with his friends.

They ate and drank, perhaps felt the tension, or maybe not. maybe they let their guards down, just for a minute. Maybe they exhaled and thought they had avoided the worst.

But as they relaxed, Jesus took one more piece of bread, one more cup.

He gave thanks for both, the bread, the wine, and he passed them around.

This is me, he said; whenever you gather and share this meal, remember. This is me. In all the days to come, all the moments you’ll wonder if there is a point, all the times you believe you’re the only ones still standing, I am with you. This bread, this cup, this movement, this vision: this is me. Do this and remember. Do this and know that I am with you still.

So, we eat, we drink, we remember, we breathe. There is a movement still, there is hope still, there is the reign of God yet ahead and also in this moment. We breathe in the spirit of the living Christ and we breathe out the same spirit of refreshment and defiance.

Eat. Drink. Breathe. And remember. I am with you, said Jesus.

Let us pray:

Bless this bread and cup, O God, and fill us with the spirit of Christ, that all our days may be directed to the world as you imagine. Be with us, O God, as you have pledged, and teach us to love. amen.

This meal is ready, the gifts of God for the people of God. Please, come and eat.

post-communion

Let us pray… You feed us on your spirit of love and renewal, and we fall safely once again into your embrace. Hold us, lead us, guide us, O God. Let us feel the depth of your love as powerfully as we feel the depth of depravity and despair in our world. By this meal, by this community, make us the people you need us to be. Amen.