TRANSCRIPT
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good morning friends if you’re visiting my name is Alex I’m one of the pastors here it’s great to have you here uh for those of you that visited a cup last week um in lament week and came back bravo good for you uh because it was samba we were looking backwards and just experiencing some of what it is to appreciate that man when change happens it is difficult uh and this morning we began to sing some of the some of those songs of of what we’re going to talk about today this idea of presence I asked darren if we could sing all 12 verses of crowning with many crowns because it does have 12. and he said however much extra time that takes you lose off your sermon and I said maybe we should just do two verses and then we landed on four um but what a wonderful just joy to sing those hymns and hopefully you caught the the
connection with these songs that talk about this idea of awake but last week we asked this question what happens when we encounter change when we kind of change whether it’s a personal thing whether we go through loss or something like that or whether it’s a corporate thing like a community thing change is this difficult season sometimes we want to hide from that but actually what we talked about last week is is acknowledging that is a very healthy thing to be able to say I’m not okay that’s a good thing it is okay to not be okay what we looked at is this idea change is loss loss brings grief and man grief is disorientating I talked about my experience surfing and being tumbled up and down by some waves and not knowing which way was up and which way was down and that’s where we can land in that season of change we’re
like ah I just don’t know where I am as a community we’ve been through change whether it’s the coronavirus season of 2020 whether it’s moving from one lead pastor to another those different things when we go through those seasons at times we can say ah I don’t know where I am and yet there’s this other tension with change the other tension is that you might find that there’s one group of people that are very much I’m ready to go forward let’s move I’ve been standing still too long and there might be another group of people that are like wait I’m not quite ready to move forward now the tension there is this if you don’t move forward something stagnant tends to happen I took these pictures of brighton pia or the west pier more correctly in the south of England this is what it looked like in the 90s when I used to visit as a child it’s
what’s called a grade 1 listed building that means it can’t be used for anything other than what it was designed to be and it was designed to be appear for people to go on and play games so this is like mid 90s just this sense of like dilapidation to fix this pier would cost around 35 to 40 million dollars but you can’t use it for anything other than what it was designed to be so it’s very hard to make that kind of money back people have offered to buy it and you can buy it for a pound one pound which is about a dollar 25 if you have the 40 million dollars to do the renovations and then it’s yours um but you have to do it to have to turn it into a pier so people have talked about making it into a hotel people have talked about living on it and building a house just for themselves but nobody wants to to to change it back to what it used to be so
slowly over the years this has happened this is what it looks like today slowly this beautiful building this incredible thing has slowly disappeared into the ocean bit by bit it falls away lost in this tension of not being able to move forward but not being able to stay back in its past in its history communities can be like that now I want to make a distinction there because in personal grief man that can go on for years and and I will say this truthfully you may never stop grieving and that’s okay in the place you are you may never stop grieving um and that’s okay but for a community to constantly be caught in this looking backwards phase can be really difficult I once interviewed at a mega church and this church had had a very famous pastor who had since moved on and as I hung out with the people the staff and people in the community his name
and his aura just seemed to lurk around the building I was convinced that somewhere there was like an office with a hidden door that was still his office that they just never changed and was casually gathering dust I I imagine that the last toilet that he blessed with his presence had never been flushed or something like that it just felt like this this awkward tension of not being able to move on and yet a community has to move on otherwise it dies so in between backwards and forwards one of the most healthy things I think is this idea of upwards it’s this idea of God’s presence if I could have us ask a question this week it would be how do we allow change to lead us into an experience of God I need to fire whoever left the question mark off the end of that um it was me my own incompetence but how do we allow change to lead us
into an experience of God that’s what we’ll see this Joshua community do before forwards there is there is there is upwards so we’re going to start I’m going to read Joshua chapter one we’ll look at all the different passages as we move forward now Joshua chapter 1 moves straight on from the book before that Deuteronomy chapter 34. now if you’re unfamiliar with the bible that’s fine what you tend to find is that the individual books there’s not a ton of concern about who wrote each book the bible actually cares less about those kind of things than we seem to care about them obviously Moses who’s the traditional writer of Deuteronomy did not write Deuteronomy 34 because it’s very hard to write the words and then Moses died if you’re already dead so somebody else wrote those and then Joshua chapter one seems to follow
straight on and it goes like this after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord the Lord said to Joshua son of nun Moses aid Moses my servant is dead now then you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan river into the land I’m about to give them to the israelites I will give you every place where you set your foot as I promised Moses your territory will extend from the desert to lebanon and from the great river the euphrates all the hittite country to the mediterranean sea in the west no one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life as I was with Moses so I will be with you I will never leave you nor forsake you be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them be strong and very courageous be careful to obey all the law my my servant Moses
gave you do not turn to it from it to the right or to the left that you may be successful whenever you wherever you go keep this book of law always on your lips meditate on it night and day so that you may be careful to do everything written in it then you will be prosperous and successful have I not commanded you be strong and courageous do not be afraid do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go let us pray father as we look at this passage as we begin to look upwards God we know that there’s so many different experiences in this room some of us have come in hurting some of us have come in joyful some of us look back to our past with so many things we’re thankful for some of us look back and see things that we’ve lost in this moment we dare to look upwards we dare to look to you God we
believe that you breathed into this book that we read and it came alive God would you breathe into us your people that we might come alive in whatever way we need that thank you Jesus for your presence with us with your church as you promised amen so here we go first part of Joshua Joshua chapter one after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord the Lord said to Joshua son of nun Moses aid Moses my servant is dead now then you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan river into the land I’m about to give them to the israelites Joshua’s first step after this big change after Moses has died is to wait he doesn’t move instantly he doesn’t make that first step in across the Jordan into this new land he waits and he has a conversation with God so often when we land in the the tension of change our first response is
action we want to do something and yet Joshua is wiser than us now one of the things that’s interesting is I’ve called this week upwards but that can be problematic for some people you see the bible is written in the language of what I would call a three-tiered world view so uh hang with me on this you have the middle part that’s the part we live on and I used the shire because it made sense heaven on earth and then you have the heavenly realm which God occupies or the angelic forces occupy and then you have something below us which is either hell or hades or the grave or someplace that you don’t want to go and and the bible it just really operates in the tension of that’s how people saw the world quite often you’ll see phrases that would describe the world in that way now we still do some of that today I’m an unashamed
new york Yankees fan you can hate me all you want but I started watching the Yankees years ago and this is glyber torres he hits a grand slam he celebrates what does he do he points to the sky so for a chunk of us we still continue with that just three-tiered world view heaven is up guard is up there but if you’re of more of a scientific bent that may cause you some problems so maybe it sends up how can I take the bible seriously when it talks about guardian up there in the sky when it talks about a middle ground and it talks about like a health thing right below our feet somewhere like if you dig down far enough you’ll reach it that’s caused tension for people for a good hundred years now the first cosmonaut to reach space yuri gagarin famously looked out upon this space that mankind was entering for the first time and said I don’t see God
up here anywhere now in actual fact the bible is far less simplistic in its view than we might think it is there there are passages that will say things like this this is what the Lord says heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool where is the house that you will build for me where will my resting place be there is this sense of like that three-tiered view but in actual fact most of the time it’s metaphor and a lot of other times you’ll see passages like this where can I go from your spirit where can I flee from your presence if I go up to the heavens you are there if I make my bed in the depths you are there if I rise on the wings of the dawn if I settle on the far side of the sea even there your hand will guide me your right hand will hold me fast plenty of other places in this book there’s this idea that well no God is everywhere there is no up and
down it’s everywhere that the bible is comfortable with the tension between the two comfortable with its use of language one way and its use of language the other way and if you come in with this sense of I struggle with the compatibility of faith and science one of the things I would say is that God is the bible is actually comfortable with that it’s comfortable with the tension there that it’s possible to to love and enjoy science and yet find this deep faith the challenge might be for you this week is are you willing to be come open to something more mystic something that you can’t grasp with your five senses that can be a challenge that can be a hard thing to do if you’ve never done it before to begin to ask that question is the more than just the physical stuff that we see around us what I would say is when I use the language
upwards I’m not using it in this distinct sense of upwards I’m using it in this sense of looking godwards and in grief in change that can be hard to do when we experience something when we experience a disaster when we experience a loss when we experience pain that idea of growth grief that idea of disorientation looking towards God can be the last thing we want to do there’s this passage in psalm 74 that says God take your hand out of your robes the picture that it gives is a God who is sitting or standing with his hands like this able to help but refusing to do so this is the psalmist’s like unabashed expression of like oh God why aren’t you doing something in this situation in grief to choose to look godwards for some of us can be difficult for some of us it could be a sort of a mental struggle we can’t believe we can’t bring ourselves
to cognitively cognitively process the idea that there is a God for some of us it’s an emotional struggle and then of course there’s some of us that find it easy for some of you that walk through change you’re like it’s okay God has this and that’s great I’m glad that you are one of those people but often I am not that person often in my experience of pain experience of lust looking to God is a painful thing fortunately for us this Joshua character is wiser than perhaps we are he through learned behavior knows before he moves before he takes this people that have lost this great leader and says we’re going to do something new he knows to wait and he’s learnt that from this guy Moses that he’s hung around with for a good 40 years or so look at this passage back in exodus 33 if you want to note it down and read it later Joshua right before this
passage the line before this has it’s we’ve been told that Joshua is always present when Moses has these encounters with God and this is this encounter Moses said to the Lord you’ve been telling me lead these people but you have not let me know whom you will send with me you have said I know you by name and you have found favor with me if you are pleased with me teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you remember that this nation is your people the Lord replied my presence will go with you and I will give you rest then Moses said to him if your presence does not go with us do not send us up from here how will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us what else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth and
the Lord said to Moses I will do the very thing you have asked because I am pleased with you and I know you by name then Moses said show me your glory Joshua has learned from Moses before you move you have to wait before forwards there’s this moment of looking upwards or godwards of of taking pause and bringing God into the situation and Joshua does this faithfully experiencing presence requires awareness it requires a willingness to stop as we just looked there’s these passages in this text that we read that say God is everywhere but I think between us would be honest and say there might be some of us that we feel like we sense God’s presence regularly there might be some of us that say that’s a difficult thing for me and right now where I am in my life I’m just not sure that he’s with me in the way that I would like there
might be some of us that have never taken that step before personally and we would say that if we experience God here now that would be for the first time and that’s okay all sorts of different backgrounds and yet the first step to experiencing God’s presence requires awareness a few years ago I was wandering down the street of my hometown and I saw a huge crowd with a uh a big rolls royce sort of like in the center of them and then the building door opened and this guy walked out uh if you can’t see the picture clearly it is Simon Cowell from the x factor wondered out now if you don’t know who he is he’s on tv judging American talent british people’s main function today in the world is to judge American talent apparently we have no discernible talent of our own uh and and yet so that’s what we do we’re on tv doing that and so
this crowd was waiting they must have heard somehow that he was there and so there’s this sense of the like there’s this rumbling of anticipation and then when he walks out everyone’s like ah Simon Cowell is here celebrity culture is one of the few avenues that we have into seeing like for the first time maybe what what it is to experience something bigger than us now of course the experience of Simon Cowell is nothing like the experience of the creator of the universe but it gives us some language to use for those people that were aware it was a big moment for me he was unaware it took a while to catch up a second story to sort of parallel with that this is the birth of my uh third child Jude’s first visitor was not the normal grandparent was not the normal sister or brother or something like that it was Santa Claus not the real Santa
Claus like one of his fake minions that helps him you know those guys um he turned up and wandered in it was December 12th and all the way through I’m thinking there’s something wrong with this Santa Claus he’s far too athletic to look like a Santa Claus he just doesn’t fit and then his wife was young and she was pretty and I’m like ah there’s just something wrong with mrs Claus as well they’re not the usual jolly sort of fat figures that you’re presented with and it turns out that all the time Santa Claus was jim harbaugh the coach of Michigan football now as a huge wolverines fan like at that time jim harbaugh was like he was almost like the voice of God to me he was the guy that was going to save our dilapidated program and three years on a much more cynical than I was then but at the time when I found out I was like I missed it this
guy he caught it I found their picture in the paper they sent it in this guy knew who was with him and I was caught unawares does this distinction between being aware of God’s presence and not being aware of God’s presence it doesn’t mean that it’s not here it just means that there’s a chance that we might miss it means there’s a chance that we might miss it the question I would twist then is is are you aware that God is there what does it take to experience God’s presence what does it take if you’re someone who’s never had that sense of God is here with me now what does it take to move into that for the first time maybe that feels a little too risky for you maybe a little too mystic for you and yet all through history there are these stories of people that have encountered God and their lives have changed dramatically because of it
this idea is is present in the new testament as well not just the old testament this is some of Jesus last words to his followers I am going to him who sent me none of you asks me where you are going other rather you are filled with grief because I have said these things but very truly I tell you it is for your good that I’m going away unless I go away the paraclete will not come to you but if I go away I will send him to you I left that word pericle in the original greek language it could be translated as advocate or lawyer or something like that it’s Jesus way of referring to this spirit that as followers of his we believe that we engage with but the the word paraclete most comfortably means comforter someone who comes alongside someone who brings that sense of comfort I have a series of photos to show you this is from some Christmas photos we
took a few years ago I’ve always been intrigued by this willingness to receive comfort at least from the perspective of my children watch what happens in this series of Christmas photos we tried to take first photo everything is fine sisters holding hands all is well second photo things have started to take a turn for the worse uh third photo younger sister is no longer happy with oldest sister older sister is still smiling angelically finally we see like the full horror of everything has gone wrong I am broken I am angry I am hurting uh and then youngest sister throws self on floor and then this is my favorite one of the the bunch there’s there’s nothing to see here I had no part to play in this and of course as sisters there’s regularly these interactions of like ah we get angry with each other we get we we you know we get upset what I noticed is this for years
and years it took Gigi a long time to accept comfort I would gather them both to me and it would sense elena’s breath starting to align with mine the the sort of the desperation started to disappear she would slowly start to breathe at my rate and she would lie there for 10 15 minutes and and peace would come but for Gigi it was much harder to do that she would get up she would run off she would go looking for comfort elsewhere or she would just stand screaming now she’s gotten much better over the years but it was just fascinating to see this difference and I think that is true for some of us as well there’s this question of are we those that are willing in God’s presence to take comfort are we those that are still looking to find that somewhere else there’s this incredible story uh from a few years ago of a bunch of navy seals
that went into rescue some hostages somewhere overseas in places that I don’t want to go and and don’t know anything about but they got in they got rid of the bad guys as I’m told and they they went into where the hostages were being held and they undid their bonds and they’d been kept in this dark sort of underground place and they said you’re free to go and nobody moved they just stayed they were terrified they didn’t know they were disorientated they were lost in this process of loss and grief and what it took was this one of the the navy seals took off his armor put down his gun and climbed in amongst the hostages sat there where they could feel his presence where they could sense his breath in the room next to them and he started to begin to tell them it’s okay we’re here to help I’m here to rescue you come with us you’re safe
now it’s so interesting what it took for them to be willing to move and I think there’s this wonderful parallel between this Jesus story that that talks about the idea of a God who doesn’t stay distant but is willing to come to our rescue to be like us to experience what life is like on our level and say come with me there’s a new story for you to live in the word comfort or consolation in Hebrew is a mixture of two different words the letters the consonants are the same as like two words imagine them put next to each other now I don’t know what that means necessarily to a person from a couple of thousand years ago but the two words that it would make up are a rest and warmth there’s this idea that comfort consolation is about warm rest it’s about warm rest my wife is very smart far smarter than me and the rest of my family I
believe we go to this place on the southwest coast of England uh sometimes we have great weather and sometimes the sea is delightful there are other times where it never gets above 60 degrees and the water temperature never gets above 50 degrees or something like that and yet my family are so addicted to the ocean that every single one of us will still be in the ocean regularly during that week my wife will not be in the ocean during that week what she does is this she sits in the glass room or this one particular year I’m sitting thinking of she sat in this glass room overlooking where we’re all bathing and she found the biggest blanket she could possibly find she made this actually herself um this is about the weight of a small child or even a big child and it’s made up of yarn that we got a 90 discount and it still cost 90 so you’re looking
at a blanket that’s worth I know like 800 and something dollars here or something like that and she made it herself but it’s it’s this this idea of like ah she would sit wrapped in this blanket of warmth and she knows what it is to rest that’s this picture that we’re given when we talk about the idea of God’s presence this this comfort this warm rest this sense of relaxation of like ah but this blanket is also something else it’s not just warm it’s what’s called a weighted blanket so there’s been some research done over the last few years that says that a blanket of a certain weight over about 20 pounds for people that suffer from anxiety adhd autism actually can just bring this sensory level of comfort it brings this like place of like I feel okay I feel like I’m safe when we looked at that passage earlier I read in that that liturgy that that passage from second
chronicles it talks about God’s glory coming into the temple now that’s a foreign word to us what do we mean by God’s glory the literal Hebrew word for glory kabod is from another word that’s very similar kabad and it quite literally means wait quite literally means weight never in a bad sense never in a weight that you can’t handle but always in a good sense so when we talk about presence all these words sort of sort of align with each other there’s this idea of warmth and rest and comfort and weight and safety when we talk about God’s presence those are the things that were invited into and isn’t that good news for a people lost in change isn’t that good news for people that are lost in loss that are struggling in grief that are going through disorientation there’s this invitation to this presence that says come and sit and experience
warm rest experience what it is to have that weight rest upon you know that you are safe there’s this connection between warmth and rest and God’s presence and that is there in that passage where Moses has that conversation with God with a Joshua is sitting waiting in the Lord said my presence will go with you and I will give you rest presence and rest are related to each other it’s becoming aware that God is there it’s moving from the question of are you aware to to becoming aware of like God is here and he was all along but that presence that rest for waiting is always purposeful and he’s always getting ready for that next move forward which we’ll get to more completely next week but we’re going to live on the verge of today this is the next part of that Joshua passage be strong and very courageous be careful to obey all the law my servant
Moses gave you do not turn to it turn from it to the right or to the left that you may be successful wherever you go keep this book of the law always on your lips meditate on it day and night so that you might be careful to do everything written in it then you will be prosperous and successful when we think about the law and this word for some of us that have been around for a long time we tend to think about actions that we’re supposed to do rules were supposed to keep and yet central to the law for these old testament people wasn’t just stuff that they had to do it was a knowing of who God was this is Deuteronomy chapter six verse four it’s called the shamar it’s like what Jesus said is the centerpiece of the whole Jewish law hear o israel the Lord our God the Lord is one love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your strength why did this people need to know that the Lord was one why did they need to know that God was one they lived in a time where there were all these competing deities around you had gods of particular nations and there was always this question of which God is stronger when you’re in which different place and then there were these gods that you had to keep happy there was the river guard who made sure that your crops got water but there was the guard of the harvest that made sure that the cup crops grew and you you had to make sure that you kept all of them balanced and you could never let one of them get unhappy with you had to appease all of them and and showing too much honor to juan might mean that you didn’t show enough honor to the other and this God starts to say to this people actually you
don’t need to worry about all of those different types of things I have you covered it’s funny that it reminds me of my experience with my kids as they’ve started to ask me questions about monsters now we all know monsters aren’t real right I think but I told my kids I didn’t tell them that they were but when they came to me I’d read this parenting book and in no way am I prescribing this behavior so if you’re a parent learning stuff don’t do what I do I just I’m trying it I’m experimenting but when they came to me and said they asked me about the monsters I didn’t tell them monsters weren’t real do you know why because that just tells them that you don’t know about the monsters it means that you’re weak it means that you’re a failure they’re like no mom and dad don’t know about the monsters I’m in real trouble like when the monsters
come they won’t even be there to protect me so what I did was I told them that daddy eats monsters for breakfast and that seemed to work so in actual fact they started going to their friends and when the subject of monsters came up they were like no you don’t need to worry my dad eats monsters um now again I have no idea if it’s good or bad it was a theory and a parenting book and I went with it the bible is very comfortable with the framework that there is one God who is the God everywhere but when it talks about these other gods it talks about them often in the sense of don’t worry there might be monsters out there but I have you covered you’re going to be okay this place of presence is this place it’s like this thing this starting point to move on from it’s this waiting and you’re in this sense of safety in this place
where God is there and it’s this getting you ready to go out and when you go you take that presence with you and it doesn’t matter what you face because this God knew all about those things that were in front of you and I gave you a little picture of monsters inc because I was talking about monsters there we go some of you will go home and watch that movie just based on that picture that was such a good movie I’ve got to go back and watch it again and don’t tell your kids that monsters are real and this is the final passage have I not commanded you be strong and courageous do not be afraid do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go don’t worry about what’s in front in this moment I am here with you and the same God who is here will be there in the next step and the step after and the step after
and the step after that’s what presence is all about you haven’t moved yet and you get you get to picture this guard on that journey with you wherever you happen to go we’re going to move to a time of communion of eucharist of the table of mass whatever you grew up calling it is just fine but the the whole point of eucharist is this it’s this idea that God is present in a particular way it’s not just that we remember what Jesus did it’s that we actively sort of place ourselves back in that very time or maybe even better we draw that that very moment where Jesus gave his life for us into our present reality right now and we say God in this moment I need you to do something in my life I need your presence to be with me and we create space for that but as we do that I’d love you to walk with me through this spiritual exercise I’m going to invite you to just
close your eyes for a few minutes I’m going to do this thing called palms down palms up if it seems a little mystic that’s okay you’re actually part of an eastern faith whether you knew it or not but it’s it’s actually uh just a wonderful way of taking into our minds what God has done for us you see the reason that God’s presence I think can be awkward or difficult for many of us it’s simply we are distracted people right now my biggest distraction to God’s presence is I’m talking to a whole chunk of people that if I say the wrong thing I’ll look like an idiot you brought your own distractions in maybe you’re worried about your fantasy football team maybe something you came in with an argument between you and your spouse you and somebody else there’s just something that’s off in a relationship maybe you came in just with this weight of loneliness
that you live by yourself you’re not around many people they can be big things they can be little things but each of them are they’re a distraction they are the thing that has our focus could be a sickness could be a loss of income it could be a job opportunity that didn’t work out whatever the thing is and and as you close your eyes I would expect that in this moment it’s the first thing to jump into your mind the first thing that distracts you from God’s presence maybe you’re just really hungry you skipped breakfast this morning whatever it is in this exercise we get to lay that down before we enter this time of communion we get to say God I refuse to let this distraction get between you and me so what I’d love you to do is just as you close your eyes feel the weight of your feet on the ground in front of you put your hands out in front of you if you \
feel comfortable and just imagine whatever that thing is in your hands that thing that has all of your attention right now maybe it’s this sense that you feel like God is disappointed in you that you haven’t been all that you could be maybe you’re worried there’s a fear about something in front of you you’re not sure about the journey the journey doesn’t matter right now right now is a time for presence God will be with you in the journey but right now he is with you he’s looking for your attention whatever that distraction is whatever that thing is that is in the way as Aaron plays I’m just going to invite you whenever you’re ready to take your hands that are now palm upwards and just turn your palms down and imagine dropping whatever that thing is into the hands of your heavenly father who knows what you have need of he knows that you
can’t carry the weight of it he knows how alone you felt he knows how much of a burden it has been to bear he knows how important it is how much it matters to you he knows that you might have to deal with it in the future but right now he just wants you and so as you place that burden in the hands of your father who loves you for a moment you get to let go and then whenever you’re ready turn your hands back the other way and just be ready to receive whatever God has for you sometimes he doesn’t give us everything that we want but he always gives us himself and maybe that was the thing that we needed all along God in this moment we wait for your presence for those of us that have never experienced that to whom this whole thing feels a little bit weird God may we experience your presence for those who have felt like
we’ve walked through a desert of dryness of emptiness may we experience the fresh rush of your presence like a spring bursting forth down for those of us who feel that this season has been rough before we go back into the world around us may we experience your presence your presence as a warm rest as a weight that makes us feel safe and whenever you’re ready you can take the communion elements and I’m going to read you this passage from first corinthians this is Paul the writer talking for I receive from the Lord what I also passed unto you the Lord Jesus on the night 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 after supper he took the cup saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this whenever you whenever
you drink it in remembrance of me we are putting ourselves back into that moment Jesus gave his life for each one of us or maybe even better we are inviting that moment into our present reality and realizing that he is here for you now and so whenever you’re ready I invite you to take the bread remember that this is the body of Jesus which is for you and in the same way the cup this cup is a new covenant in of blood we do this in remembrance of Jesus and realize he is present with us God thank you for your presence with us today thank you for needs met thank you for a pathway into the future but thank you for right now the only thing we have to do is rest in that presence
