922 Ministries - The CORE & St. Peter Lutheran

Well, good morning, everyone. Happy Sunday. Welcome back to week six of our sermon series. Jesus can. Wow, today's a good, huh?

If I said amen and just sent you home, would it have been a good service? Pastor Michael Stain. We're lifting up the name of Jesus. Amazing music. I'm super excited about Holy Week.

It's one of the best weeks for me of the year, for my faith, and I hope it is for you, too. Before we launch in, I just want to admit upfront a fatal flaw that I made when planning this sermon series. I call today the great, great irony. You're about to find out. The goal of today's sermon is to get you more excited about Holy Communion than you ever have been in your entire life.

And after this service is done, guess what we are not celebrating today. We celebrate communion the first and third Sundays of the month. Today's the fourth Sunday of the month. And because God has a sense of humor, there's actually five Sundays in this month. So you're going to have to hopefully remember and believe what you heard today.

And we're going to be excited to celebrate communion the next time it comes around the first Sunday in April.

When I was a kid, I was not super happy about Holy Communion. I have a great christian mom, and because she was a great christian mom, she would bring me as a kid to church every single Sunday. And because she was a really, really great christian mom, after church every Sunday, she brought me to McDonald's every Sunday. I knew that after the amen, I was just waiting for that hot cake breakfast platter. They used to serve it in like a orangeish kind of styrofoam.

And that wasn't enough for young Mike. I also got a side order of just sausage. I remember what it looked like. They served it in a white cardboard container and it would open up like this. It was like an engagement ring for a nine year old version of me.

I still love it so much. I loved it so much as a kid. I could not wait. After church was over, we would be off to McDonald's. I can still picture the McDonald's in Green Bay.

What it looked like, the brick on the side, the drive thru. It's burned until my memory. But then on certain Sundays, communion happened. As a kid, I could remember we used to sit in the last row of the balcony at my church. That's where I always wanted to sit as a kid.

And I would just watch from up there as these old ushers would slowly work their way down the aisles. People would slowly stand up, shuffle, shuffle. And they would eat and chew, and they would take and drink and sip, and then they slowly shuffle. And I just wanted to stand up in the back row and shout, everyone, I'm so close to processed pork products. Why can't we speed this up?

It was my childhood version of time, but it just felt like it took forever. If you would have asked me to grade my love of communion as a kid, I would have said, I wish there wasn't communion. Because I could get to the thing that I wanted even faster. But I want to tell you today that here, 30 some years later, I have totally changed my mind about communion. I love communion.

I love receiving communion, and I love giving communion to people just like you. And I'm curious. As I look at all of you, as I think of those of you who are watching or sitting at home, I wonder right now what you think of communion. In fact, I'm going to make you vote. Let's do a quick and no judgment at all for me, a quick thumbs up vote.

If you think communion is like the best part of christian vanity, if you emotionally like communion more than hearing sermons or singing christian songs or saying prayers or doing bible studies, do this. If you think communion is like the worst, you'd be totally fine. If it was never given, never happened, you never celebrated it. If you're kind of somewhere in the middle, you're kind of for it, but not so excited. Or you're kind of against it, to be honest.

All right, in the count of three, get your thumbs up. I want you to vote on communion. Ready? One, two, three, go.

I thought that would happen. Yeah. How we feel about communion is super dependence on what we know, believe, and have been taught about communion. It's probably super dependent on how you grew up, your experience, your church teaching, some, if any, what you were taught as part of that teaching. Some of you, I'm guessing, you're just like at square one, you don't really know what communion is.

You've never really opened a Bible to study it. You don't know all that much about it. A couple of months ago, a young, maybe 1213 year old boy said, pastor, can I do that ceremony thing you do at your church? He had no clue what communion is. I think he just saw free food and he was a twelve year old boy, so he went on me, he had no clue what that was.

Maybe that's you. To be honest, you're kind of new to church, you're new to Christianity. You've never studied it, never celebrated it, so it's hard to be excited about something. You don't super understand it. Or maybe you're one of those people that does know about it.

You've taken it in the past. You have nothing against it. But to be honest, you don't really feel like you need it. Our church has a separate communion service, and maybe you've never really felt compelled, like, oh, I need to stay. Especially if you have a Sunday that's busy or kids that are antsy.

It just doesn't feel like a good return of your time investment. It's nice, and maybe other people need it, but honestly, you just don't feel the same way. Maybe you do like communion, but after doing it for all these years or maybe decades, it's communion. It's good. I like it.

I know what Jesus said about it. But familiarity can breed contempt. And maybe taking communion enough times just kind of loses its luster and its thrill. Or maybe you're one of the many people who has more questions, confusion and frustration about communion. You've heard that there are different churches out there that have different beliefs and teachings about communion.

If you grew up Catholic or Lutheran or Baptist or non denominational, I mean, is this some sort of miraculous? Like, is Jesus body and blood really part of this? Is that a symbol, a metaphor, a representation? Like, who should take it? How should we take it?

How often should we take it? With whom should you take it with? Some churches say this, other churches say that. Some churches throw open the doors and say, you decide if you should take communion. Other churches are more cautious and say, no, we'll decide when you're ready to take communion.

And with all these debates and tension, it's not exciting. It's more of a frustration and a confusion, like, where do you begin? Whose interpretation is. So if you said this or this or this or this, I probably wouldn't judge you. But I will tell you this.

Jesus loves Communion. I know that for a fact. However I feel. However you feel, I know that Jesus, if we could see him today, he would have gotten out two hands and given a double thumbs up. He loves communion because he's the one that actually came up with communion.

Did you know that? There are some things that are just church traditions. There are some things that are just celebrations that we came up with, but not this one. It's actually something that Jesus instituted, invented. And then he said to the very first Christians, I want you to keep doing this in remembrance of me.

He came up with it because he loves it, and he wants us to love it, too. And so today, I have a singular goal. My goal is to take you if you were here and try to get you to hear. If you were here to get you to hear, or if you were here to get you to hear. Because the more I study what the Bible has to say about communion, I'm compelled.

I see it not as just something I have to do, because Jesus said, do this, but it's something I get to do, I want to do, and I can't wait to do for myself and together with you.

So before we jump back into the actual text that gets me excited about communion, I need to tell you the context in which this miracle took place. How many of you have ever heard about the jewish holiday called Passover? Show of hands? Some of you, lots of you, not all of you know about that Passover. Jesus actually gave and invented communion on a Thursday night.

It was the night before the Friday that he died on the cross. And he was actually celebrating an old, old, old tradition that stretched back over a thousand years to the days of Moses in 60 seconds. Here's the tradition. God's people in the days of Moses were stuck as slaves in Egypt. They couldn't rescue themselves.

God heard their cry for mercy, and he said, I'm going to rescue them. So he told his people, I want you to slaughter an innocent lamb. I want you to take its blood, paint it on your doorposts. I'm going to send a mighty angel to strike down your abusers and your oppressors. And when that angel sees the blood on your doorposts, he will pass over your homes.

You'll get to run away, escape your slavery, and journey to the promised land. God gave many rites and rituals to be connected with this ceremony, like this unleavened bread. It's almost like old Testament fast food. Like, you're going to get out of here fast. So we don't got time for yeast to make this dough rise.

I want you to get calories. You're going to need them for the journey. Have some bread. And there was also wine, a sign of celebration. In fact, in the traditional jewish celebration of the Passover, there would be four separate glasses of wine for every person to drink.

For the record, they were not as big as this glass. Also for the record, the wine was watered down because it was called the Passover, not the passed out. Okay? So they would have bread and they'd have wine. That was the tradition.

For a thousand years, jewish people had been celebrating this. God told them to in the book of Exodus and so here comes Jesus, and he's ethnically jewish. He's with his jewish friends. And his friends ask him, hey, it's that time. Jesus, where do you want us to celebrate the Passover?

So they get everything set up. The table is there. No, they just didn't sit on one side of it like da Vinci said. And they're at the table, there's wine and there's bread, and Jesus sits down and he starts to lead them like he would in the Passover celebration. Except this time, on this particular Thursday night, Jesus flipped the script.

He was saying all the things that he should have said that his ancestors had said for countless centuries until he said something very, very different. And I would propose to you that in just a few short verses from Jesus'lips, he gave us two miracles that only he could do in the gift of communion. And my belief is that the more you understand and believe in these two miracles, the more that this one meal will become not a have to, not a supposed to. But I love to, and I can't wait to. So let's jump in and study the two miracles in this one meal as we open our Bibles today to Matthew, chapter 26.

Matthew, who's there at the table that night, says this. While they were eating, Jesus took bread. And when he had given thanks, by the way, the greek word for give thanks is the word eucharist. You ever heard communion called? That comes from this.

He eucharisted, he gave thanks, he broke the bread, and he gave it to his disciples, saying, take and eat. This is my body.

Then he took a cup, and when he had eucharisted, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you. This is my blood.

And I so wish there was a live stream of that first communion service. I wish I could have seen the look on Peter's face when Jesus updated and edited the script and didn't say what Jews had always said. Instead, he dropped in these four almost unbelievable words, my body, my blood. What? I wonder if Peter looked at the bread and went, wait.

I wonder if he took the cup and still looks like bread, still smells like wine. I wonder when they took that first taste, if they said, what Jesus? My body and my blood. Is this some teaching again? Is this some metaphor?

Is this some parable? But Jesus never explained himself like he did with his other metaphors. What exactly was he giving to his friends?

It's a big question that Christians have wrestled with for a long, long time. What exactly is communion? What did Jesus mean when he spoke those words, was he literally, like, giving us some miraculous, hard to wrap our heads around gift, his true body, his true blood? Or was this just some sort of representation? That's the right question to ask.

That's why I grab my Bible, and I look through all of the original teachings on communion. They show up in the book of Matthew, chapter 26, the Book of Mark, chapter 14, the Book of Luke, chapter 22, and the book of one Corinthians, chapters ten and eleven. And here's what I found in those chapters. Jesus says, this is my body. This is my blood.

That's Matthew. Mark says, this is my body. This is my blood. Luke said, this is my body. Jesus's words, this is the new covenant in my blood.

We'll talk about that phrase in a second. And in one Corinthians, the apostle Paul repeats the words of Jesus, this is my body. This is the new covenant in my blood. In the four key sections of the Bible, Jesus says, is.

But I thought, well, maybe Jesus didn't really mean is. What if he meant it kind of represents or it symbolizes? So I typed into a Bible search engine every single passage in the whole Bible that uses the word symbol or symbolizes or represents or representation or sign. There were 216 separate examples of that in the whole Bible. I read all of them.

And do you know how many of them are connected to the chapters on communion?

None of them are. And then I thought, well, but sometimes Jesus spoke in kind of metaphors. You remember the time he said, I'm the vine and you're the branches? He wasn't literally saying, I grew out in the backyard, in the garden. But whenever Jesus would do something like that, he would explain himself, I'm the vine, you're the branches.

Because if you remain connected to me, like a branch connected to a vine, you will bear much fruit. I'm the sheep, and you're the shepherd. That was a metaphor. He wasn't calling people literal sheep. Because if you stay close to me, I'll fight the wolf for you and keep you alive.

I'll sacrifice myself like a good shepherd would. When Jesus spoke in similes or metaphors, he would explain it. But here he doesn't. He just says, this is my body. Period.

Moving on. This is my blood. No explanation.

And this is why the earliest christian sources that taught about communion taught that communion was not just a good way to remember Jesus with his physical meal. It was actually a miracle that somehow, in some way, that's almost offensive to our senses. Jesus made a promise here that we hold onto in faith that his body and blood are present. One of the earliest christian authors after the apostles was a man named Justin Martyr. He lived and wrote about 150 AD.

The apostle John died around 100 AD. And he said this about communion. He said, we have been taught, meaning we didn't come up with this, but the earlier Christians taught us this. We have been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of his word is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. St.

Augustine, who is one of the most famous Christians in the last 2000 years, he described communion with these words. He said, that bread which you see on the altar having been sanctified by the word of God, say it with me is the body of Christ. And that chalice, or the cup, or rather that which is in the chalice. The wine having been sanctified by the word of God, say it with me is the blood of Christ. The earliest Christians clung to the simple teaching of Jesus.

Even if it wasn't easy to understand. The communion is something more. It's a miracle. If you're taking notes, I want you to write this down according to the passages in their context. There are four things present when we celebrate communion.

There's bread, there's wine, but not just that. There is also Christ's body and Christ's blood. Four things in one meal.

Now, I gotta tell you, this doesn't make sense to me. But there's some things in the Bible, some of the biggest things in the Bible that don't make sense to me. Have you ever heard of the Trinity before? So there's our father, who's God, and there's Jesus, who is God. And there's the Holy Spirit, who's God.

But there's not one, two, three gods. There's just one God. Like I can repeat what the Bible clearly says. I don't know that my brain has figured that out after 43 and one third years. You ever heard that Jesus is true God and true man in one person?

Yeah, I have two. For the life of me, I can't figure out how the God whom the universe can't contain could be contained in the womb of a woman named Mary. But that's what happened. Human reason and logic is an incredible gift from God. We should use it as often as we can.

But there are times when logic has to stop and reason has to stop and just submit itself to the things that God clearly said. And your Jesus, with clarity and with no other explanation, gave us this epic, important last covenant. He said, this is my body and this is my blood.

About 500 years ago, there were these two followers of Jesus named Martin and Huldrich who were debating what exactly communion is. Martin believed what I just told you, that this is the body and blood of Christ with the bread and the wine. Huldrick just couldn't get his mind around that. He thought it must be some sort of representation or symbol. And they went back and forth, not just for a minute or two or an hour or two, but multiple days, until Huldrick at one point in the argument he was so let me show you a picture.

Guy in the middle, that's Martin, the guy kind of mean, mugging him there like, ah, that's Huldrick. They're debating about communion. Huldrick asked Martin like, just show me a passage in the Bible to prove what you believe about communion.

And Martin was ready for that question. And he apparently had a flair for the dramatic because before anyone had arrived there that day, he had taken a piece of chalk and written on the table at which they would debate a verse from the Bible. He had covered it up with a linen cloth and he must have been waiting for the question to come. And when Holdrich said, show me a passage, what did Martin do?

Boom. And he pointed down at the table. And what was there staring back? The words of Jesus, this is my body. He said it.

Martin confessed, it's a miracle and I believe it.

I hope you believe it too. It's not just a theological debate. This is one of the most amazing gifts that God has given to people like us. Quick shot fans. How many of you have heard the story of when Jesus calmed the storm in the Bible?

You heard that? Lots of hands down. How many of you were there to be part of the story when Jesus calmed the storm? Me neither. How many of you ever heard the story when Jesus fed 5000 people with some bread and fish?

Yeah, me too. How many of you were one of the 5000 people that Jesus fed with the bread and the fish? Me neither. How many of you have heard the story where Jesus gave bread and wine and called it his body and blood? Unless you were sleeping, your hand should be up right now.

How many of you have ever come to church on a Sunday and received the body and blood of Christ?

Yeah. You ever think about that? How epic would it be if we could step outside and watch Jesus calm a storm again like he did that one day? How crazy. If Jesus in our day would take some kid's lunch and feed a crowd of people.

That would be stunning. But get this, communion is a miracle that Jesus keeps repeating, a miracle that he puts into our hands and onto our lips.

It's amazing. Miracles happen in this space. Miracles happen in this space. Jesus just didn't want to give you an extra thing to do on your christian list. He wanted to put into your hands a supernatural gift that your heart and your logic could not even understand.

He wanted to give you the best gift he knew how to give. He wanted to give you himself.

What is communion? It's not just a meal that's meant to spark our memories. It's a supernatural gift that Jesus gave to his first disciples. And he gives to us the bread, the wine, and his true body and blood.

But in my opinion, it's not even the greatest miracle.

Now, I believe that's true and it's humbling and it's amazing. But honestly, what gets me so excited about communion is what Jesus said next. Back to Matthew 26, verse 28. Jesus said, drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Man, that phrase, I think about it every single time. This isn't just his blood. Okay, I'll try to believe that. No, he said, this is my blood of the covenant. Now, if you had read the Bible all the way up to this page, from the front cover to this, you would know that the covenant or the new covenant was essentially the gospel promise of God.

The Bible talks about this old covenant, this old agreement that God had with people like, hey, if you do this and that and this, A, B and C, then I will bless you with de and F. Except that deal never worked because humans like us would always fall short of A, B and C. So God says, okay, how about a new deal? How about a new covenant? I'll just forgive you and remember your sins no more.

Read Jeremiah, chapter 31, verses 31 through 34. If you want to learn more about that. God says, how about this deal? I'll just highlight and delete everything you've done that would make me mad. That's the covenant.

And so when Jesus says, I want you to take and drink, this is not just my blood, this is the blood of the covenant. Jesus is promising us the greatest gift that the universe has ever known.

To me, this is so profound that God would take everything I've ever done wrong and separate it as far from me as Thailand is from Texas, that everything you wish you could go back and redo every word that came out of your mouth, Jesus says, gone.

Every time you got caught up in the heat of the argument, and you didn't even want to be patient or kind. You just wanted to win in that moment. Like, everything you regret, all the stuff you feel bad about, all the stuff I should feel worse about, everything wrong we've ever done, all the love we should have gotten up off the couch and done, like, everything that would frustrate God or disappoint God or make God mad and not accept us. Jesus says, how about this deal? How about I just take care of it?

That's the promise of the new covenant. That is what is waiting for you when you eat and drink this amazing meal called communion. The more I think about that. Wait. When this happens, God is promising to just forgive me for all of it.

When I think about that, I honestly don't know what to do with my body at communion. Have you figured this out yet?

Should I just put out trembling hands? If you were handing me a $5 million check, how would I take it? It's a priceless gift that Jesus gives. Should I fall to my knees like the forgiveness of all my sins? Should I weep in repentance?

I used to know a guy after communion, he'd do like, that. Feels right. Should you smile at the pastor who's giving you communion? That seems right, too. Should you just, like, solemnly nod because there's nothing like this that feels right, too?

I think you could smile or laugh or cry or fall on your face or jump into the air. It all fits. Because we're receiving a supernatural gift for a supernatural purpose. The forgiveness of our sins. What communion is, is a miracle.

But what communion gives is perhaps a greater miracle. Write this down. Here's what communion gives. It gives the forgiveness of our sins. Communion forgives us.

For all of know, I can't prove this from the Bible, but I sometimes wonder if Jesus said something so illogical just to prepare us for the greater lack of logic. This is my body. This is my blood. Our logic says what? Well, Jesus said, you better believe that, because here's something crazier.

I forgive you for all of your sins.

You give me a second chance. No, I just forgive you. You're going to give me time to fix it, to balance the scales, to correct my. Nope. Nope.

I'm just gonna look at you and love you. How about that? There's nothing logical about the gospel, but Jesus said it, and we believe it. And thank God. It's know.

A while back, there was this woman from our church who had messed up really bad. She had sinned. There were consequences. She felt terrible, but she couldn't go back. She had to live.

She had to reap what she had sown. But as God would have it, the following Sunday was communion. I'm so grateful that when she came up, she was on my side where I distribute communion. And there she was. And there's nothing different about what I did.

Same bread, same wine, same words. But when she came up, it was so beautiful for both of us to be able to say, take this. This is for you still. This is for the forgiveness of your sins, that sin. So go in peace.

Communion is this glorious constant because we as humans are so inconsistent. We're good, we're bad, we obey, then we don't. We're strong, and then we sin. And yet here, week after week after week, God just shows up and he doesn't change his mind. And he says what he said the last time.

But sometimes you just need to hear what he said the last time, because something is different about this time. He says, this is my blood of the covenant. And it's poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Communion is two miracles. What it is, what it gives the body and blood of Christ with the bread and the wine.

The forgiveness of your sins. My sins of all sins.

So what do we do now? Well, I can think of two next steps, depending who you are today. If you're not a member of our church family, I think the best next step that you could take to appreciate communion is to sign up for starting point. Pastor Michael pitched it before. Starting point is like a crash course on the most important teachings in the whole Bible.

Some of you have never studied these before. Some of you studied them as a kid when you didn't have grown up questions just yet. We're going to study repentance, forgiveness, the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the father, the spirit, how it begins, how it ends, how we should live our lives. And one of the ten lessons, a whole lesson is devoted to this amazing gift. It's on communion, and you can have a chance with your own eyes to study all these passages that I've been studying.

You can raise your hand and say, hey, but I was raised like this. Or what about that? And a trained pastor who's dug deep into this is going to love to feel those questions, to work through those things with you. I would love, at the end of starting point, for you to be in union with us spiritually so that we can celebrate communion together. Because I'm not just saying this.

Having you here in church, preaching to you is amazing. But there's just something more personal, something so much better when I can look you in the eye, put the gift of Jesus into your hands, and say to you the simplest, most powerful thing in the universe, you're forgiven.

So check a box. Take a step. You might be nervous. You won't be the first. You might have questions.

We won't make you read funny Old Testament names out loud in front of large crowds of people. I hope if you're new here, you can sign up for starting point so that we can celebrate this miracle right with you.

Now, last thing I want to say, how do you prepare for communion? Yeah, I was digging into all these bible passages, and I came up with something that I hope it might be too complex to remember, but I tried to simplify all that the Bible has to say so that the next time I celebrate communion and you celebrate communion, we can do it by not going through the motions or not feeling this obligation, but instead of being so excited about this gift. So I want you to write this down. If you want to really prepare and enjoy communion, if you want to turn it from this to this, I would suggest that you look back, forward, up, down, in and around.

Can you write fast? I think you're going to get the most out of communion for the rest of your life if you remember to look back, look forward, look up, look down, look in and around. Very quickly, here's what I mean. In communion, we look back to what Jesus did. He said, do this in remembrance of me.

So we are remembering what Jesus did in the past on the cross. God came down from heaven so that there could be a new covenant. Jesus sacrificed everything with his true body and his true blood, that you and God could be good. Look back. Just remember who's ever loved you that much.

Remember Jesus. Look back. Then look forward to the feast. Right after Jesus first gave communion, he said to his friends, I'm not going to eat this meal with you again until I eat it together. In the kingdom of God, there's a better meal where we don't have to remember Jesus because we will see him.

We won't have to shuffle up to take the bread and the wine with our aching hips and torn ACls and migraines and anxiety. No, we're going to celebrate at the table with Jesus. We won't have to sit side by side. We're going to sit across from him and see his face. And there will be no tears or mourning or crying or depression, no death, no divorce.

All the old things will be gone. There is a feast. And every Sunday we are one meal closer to it. I don't know how long the chain should be. Maybe you should have a communion chain and you tear off that little paper circle.

I'm one Sunday closer to the feast of heaven. Look back to the cross, look forward to the feast. Then look up to God and Eucharist.

Give him thanks.

God, everyone else in the world, every other religion, philosophy, they say you got to earn it. There is only the old covenant. With them, balance the scales, learn from your mistakes. You better be good. He's making a list.

He's checking it twice. How's your karma, God? Today I eucharist you. I give you thanks because you came up with something so illogical. The only thing that works for a sinner like me.

You did everything. I thank you for the blood of your son. It's paid in full. It's done, it's finished. I don't have to live with guilt or shame or regret.

That's over. You like me, you love me, you accept me and you approve of me. Look back to the cross, look forward to the feast. Look up to give thanks, and then look down at the gift with the eyes of faith. See what's in your hands.

In that moment, it's not just bread and wine. It is something supernaturally more. And God wanted you to have it. That's why he brought you to that moment.

Give it a half a second just to stare and shake your head and be amazed that God didn't make you climb a mountain or find gold buried in some sunken ship. When he wanted to give you the greatest gift, he used the most basic elements, bread and water and wine. Words, so that you have to spend your whole life trying to find it. You could just be given it in the simplest way. Look back to the cross, look forward to the feast, look up to give thanks, look down to see the gift, and then look in to repent.

Passover was sometimes called the feast of unleavened bread. And the Bible not only calls it unleavened bread because the Jews needed to get out of Egypt fast, it was also because yeast, or leaven in the Bible was sometimes a symbol of sin. If you bake bread before, you know that a little bit of yeast goes through the whole batch of dough. That's why even till today, the Jews have the custom when Passover week comes that they scour their entire houses and rid it of every package and crumb of yeast. Picture, like jewish kids, like on all fours, looking under the stove, looking under the fridge, any bit of yeast got to be out of the house because every little bit of sin they wanted out of their lives.

That's a good thing for us to do, too. God never, ever wanted communion to be a cover up for us to continue in sin. Instead, when you look inside before you take this meal, you say, God, search me. Is there anything you want me to change? Do you want me to treat her differently?

God, do you want me to do things differently? God? God, do you want me to start? Do you want me to stop? Like, look inside and say, God, I surrender.

Everything is yours. I repent of my sin. Your will be done in my life. Don't let big chunks of yeast remain in your heart. Look in, find them, confess them, repent of them.

Look back to the cross, look forward to the feast. Look up to give thanks, look down to see the gift, look in to repent, and then look around and rejoice.

I mean no disrespect to Jesus, but what gives me almost as much emotional joy as taking communion is seeing you as you take communion.

I love that. Even though you and I are so different in so many ways, when I look around, I rejoice at people who are like me in the most important ways.

When our church celebrates communion, there's old people and there's young people. There's teenagers who can skip up, and there's some of us who are starting to shuffle up. There's gray haired and bright red haired people who come forward. There's people who like soccer, and there's sinners who come.

I've used that joke, like, 17 times. It's fine time for me to retire that one, right? There's poor people, and there's rich people. There's business owners, and there's homeless people. There's those who are battling addiction and those who never have.

Those who struggle with gender and sexuality and those who never have. Single people, divorced people, widowed people, and dating people. We are so different in so many ways, and I think about that. There are billions of people on earth who don't believe in the God that I believe in. But when we celebrate communion in union, you do, there are billions of people who follow other religions and think, you got to earn it and deserve it.

But here you are putting out your hands for grace and mercy and the new covenant, just like I do. There's so many people who don't care about their sin. They're not sorry for it. They're proud of it, and they parade around to promote it, but not us. Now, even if it comes natural.

If God doesn't like it, then we hate it. It's not an easy thing to do, to deny yourself and say, God, your word is truth. But when you come up to communion, you believe what I believe, that God is always right and humans are often wrong. I think about all the people who are living for the likes and the clicks and the money and the fame. But then we come to communion, and that matters so little to us.

Compared to the glory of God, compared to loving our God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. There are not many people on my block who feel that way. But when you come to communion, you do. And it makes me so happy. There's a billion things that divide us, but communion unites us.

One loaf, one faith, one body, one belief. And if you and I don't go through the motions, if we take that little bit of time to look back to the cross, look forward to the feast, look up to give thanks, look down to see the gift, look into repent, and look around to rejoice, maybe we'll feel like communion is one of God's greatest gifts.

A couple weeks ago, I reached out to Amanda from our church. She's the one who for years and years and years, has been making the communion bread that we use here. And I don't think I'm biased when I say it is the best communion bread in christian history. And some of you are nodding because if you know, you know. And I asked Amanda, well, how does this happen?

How do you make it? And I'll show you. She sent me the recipe card of what she uses. Takes her ten minutes to make three loaves, preheats the oven to 350. It's not a complex recipe.

There's only five simple ingredients that I bet most of you have in your kitchen right now. And I looked at that recipe. It fits on, like, half of a card. And I thought, how can that be? The body and blood of my Jesus didn't quite make sense.

And then I thought about what I'm going to say to you the next time you take communion. This is for you, for the forgiveness of your sins. And that doesn't make sense either, but it is what it is, and it gives what it gives. So check your reason at the door and believe that in this place, miracles happen. That communion is the true body and blood of Jesus Christ.

And it was given for you for the forgiveness of sins. That's only because, friends, Jesus can. He could back then, and he still can.

Let's pray.