Never before have we had access to so much information.
And yet I don't think there's been a time in history where people were more hungry, more starved for truth.
You know, never before have we had access to so much knowledge.
Have we had the ability to generate so much in the way of knowledge?
And yet there are so many people who feel like they cannot know anything for certain.
Who remain perplexed about the deepest questions.
What is life all about?
Who are we?
Why are we here?
What is all this for?
We have access to all of this information and knowledge.
It's all at our fingertips.
It's a click away.
And yet people are longing to know what is real.
And I think this is in part what we see when we look at the Sadducees as they are described in Luke chapter 20.
These were the intellectual elites of the day.
They were incredibly knowledgeable.
They were powerful.
They were very well read.
They were very well educated.
They were extremely confident in their access to knowledge.
They ran the temple.
They shaped public theology.
They thought they knew God and how God worked.
And yet as we're going to see, when they had the opportunity to stand face to face before the Son of God, they failed to recognize it.
So how could they know so much about God and yet not recognize God when they stood face to face?
That's a question that we're going to explore this morning.
What we're going to see is that faith and belief are not just about having access to the right information.
It's not just about having enough evidence.
It's not about being intellectually convinced.
There are actually obstacles to faith that unless they are removed will prevent us from ever actually knowing and having a relationship with God, no matter how much information about God we might have.
So this is what we're going to be looking at in more depth this morning as we look at Luke chapter 20.
Let's pray and then we will open God's word together.
Our Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning.
Thank you for this time.
Thank you for your word.
We now pray and ask that in your mercy, through your grace, and the power of your spirit, you would enable us not only to understand your word but to encounter you in your word.
Because you are the one we need to see, you're the one we need to hear.
And it's in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, the living word, that we pray.
Amen.
So first of all, I want to look at these obstacles.
What are these obstacles to faith?
Where do we see them in the text?
This requires giving a little more background about the situation.
As I said, the Sadducees were the religious elites of the day.
However, even though they were religious leaders, they weren't very religious.
They were in some ways the equivalent of modern people in the way they thought about God and the supernatural.
They believed in God, yes, but beyond their belief in God, they didn't really believe that there was much outside of what we can see and hear and touch.
In some ways they were more close to a kind of materialism, scientific or philosophical materialism, as we might call it today.
They didn't really believe much in the supernatural.
They didn't believe in angels.
They didn't believe in divine providence.
And they very clearly, as the text says, didn't believe in a resurrection life that follows death.
And we know from history that they would come up with these kind of absurd scenarios to illustrate the absurdity of the idea of the resurrection, which is what happens here in Luke chapter 20.
They're in a group of people.
They're rivals.
The Pharisees are present.
And so the Pharisees did believe in the resurrection.
And so the Sadducees see this as an opportunity to trap Jesus with one of these absurd scenarios.
And so they present a scenario that has to do with an ancient custom from ancient Israel called the Leveret marriage.
And this is originally a custom that is then regulated in Deuteronomy 25 by Moses.
And this is a practice that essentially says that if a man marries a woman and that man dies and they don't have any children, that it falls to the brother of that man to marry the widow.
And that sounds very odd by today's standards.
But we need to understand that in this ancient world, this was really all about maintaining justice.
It was designed to protect widows from poverty and isolation.
It was designed to keep the land and the inheritance in the family where it belonged.
And so it was meant to be about justice and mercy.
The Sadducees, though, take this situation and they turn it into a kind of trap.
So they say, well, Jesus, how about this scenario?
What if you have seven brothers and the first gets married and then he dies and the second then does his duty and marries the wife and then he dies and they all get married to the same woman and die and nobody has any kids?
Later in the resurrection world, if they're all going to come back, what happens when that woman's walking along and she encounters all seven of these brothers alive and well?
Whose wife is she going to be?
And they're not really looking for an answer.
They're trying to trap Jesus.
Either he has to deny Moses and the practice of the leverant marriage or he has to deny the resurrection.
And ultimately, their goal is to mock the idea that anybody would believe in something like the resurrection, to just mock that as being absurd.
And here is where we really begin to see the obstacles that prevent the Sadducees from truly knowing and understanding and having a relationship with the living God.
The first obstacle we see is the obstacle of arrogance.
They're extremely arrogant.
Mocking people who don't share your beliefs, mocking people who disagree with you is, among other things, a sign of arrogance.
We see that all over the place in our culture.
We see it in religion, which is our focus this morning.
You also see it a lot in politics.
You know, not just I disagree with you, not just I see things differently or I support different policies, but a kind of mocking of people who don't agree with us on the big questions.
You see it in all kinds of places.
Because when you mock somebody who disagrees with you, what you're really saying is, not only do I disagree with you and think your views are wrong, but I actually think that you're so wrong and so off base that you're not even worthy of basic dignity and respect, right?
That's arrogant.
But I would suggest that's not the only way arrogance shows up in our lives.
Because any time human beings assume that if something falls outside our ability to understand it, it must therefore not be true, there's an inherent arrogance to that.
Because what we're really saying is that things that are real, we should be able to understand them and comprehend them.
And if my mind can't understand and comprehend it, it can't possibly be real.
We're making ourselves into the kind of arbiters of what is not only true, but what is possible.
That's a pretty grandiose view of yourself.
So that's arrogant.
Anytime we assume that our worldview is the only possible way to see things, that's arrogant.
So Charles Taylor, the philosopher, talks about the way we hold our beliefs, the difference between a spin and a take.
And people who have a take on things understand that their view is legitimate, but it's not the only way to see things, and that there are other ways of seeing things.
That even if they're not true, they're valid.
You understand how that person arrived at that set of conclusions.
But a spin view, and ignore, he's really fond of odd labels that don't always make sense.
But the spin way of holding your views is to hold your views in such a way where you say,
this is the only legitimate way to see things, and anybody who disagrees is either crazy or an idiot.
Right?
There's only one way this could possibly be made sense of.
Right?
And when you hold your views that way, there's an arrogance to that.
Because you're essentially saying, I am, again, the only reasonable perception rests with me.
And we see this emerging in different contexts, in different ways, in different kinds of people.
There are non-religious versions of this arrogance, and there are more religious versions of this.
It's arrogance.
There's a certain kind of arrogance to committed atheism.
So we're not just talking about agnostics or people not sure what they believe,
but people who will go all the way as to say, I am fully convinced that there is no God,
and I'm not open to the possibility of there being a God.
Or if you encounter non-religious people who would sort of mock and see religious people
as being intellectually weak for believing in things that cannot be proven.
Because ultimately, that's ignoring a very stubborn fact, and that is that atheism requires
every bit as much faith as theism.
You're committing yourself to believing something about the world and about the non-existence of God
that can't ultimately be proven.
So either way, you have a faith commitment that you're making.
But to hold that view and to say, I'm not even open to the possibility of there being a God,
there's an arrogance to that.
But I would also say that I think that there's an enormous amount of this kind of arrogance
that is very prevalent among religious people.
You know, the fact is, we can have biblically sound doctrines,
biblically sound beliefs.
But the question is, how do we hold those beliefs?
And how do we view people who hold to different beliefs?
You know, and I know this is true everywhere.
Speaking for myself and the circles that I travel in,
because I am a, generally speaking, theologically conservative Orthodox Christian,
most of the circles I travel in, most of those people are theological conservatives.
And I can speak for my own tribe here and just admit that within that community,
it's not uncommon to encounter a fair amount of smugness,
a fair amount of contempt toward people who are viewed as being too progressive
or people who hold to very different views
or people who come out of different traditions or denominations.
And if I'm really honest, you know, you see this popping up in the same church from time to time.
You'll have people who, there's a kind of smugness or contempt
toward people who you may disagree with even over secondary issues.
And it's very easy, and I've seen this in my own heart,
it's very easy when you're looking at another denomination or another tradition.
It's very easy for that smugness to start out as a kind of humor,
but then it very quickly can kind of go off the rails and escalate into full-on contempt.
And by that, I mean just kind of devaluing people who come out of another faith tradition.
So it's no longer about let's look at the Bible and figure out what is actually true
and what we actually believe.
It's more of a kind of judgment or perception of the people who hold those views, right?
A devaluing of them, right?
And it's so easy for that to happen.
You see it all the time.
That's arrogance.
The point of that is that it's possible to have biblically sound doctrine,
but at the same time, your heart is very far away from God.
And this is something that if we're here and you're a Christian,
we really should pay attention to this.
You can have all the right doctrines.
You can be able to point to all of the texts in the Scripture that justify everything you believe,
and you can be on the money in your beliefs,
and yet your heart can be very far from God
because this kind of arrogance is like a wedge between us and the heart of God.
It's a wedge.
So this is an issue that we see in the Sadducees.
The second obstacle comes right along beside the first.
So the first is arrogance.
The second is ignorance.
And arrogance and ignorance, that is a deadly combination.
Jesus' response to them is essentially this.
Even though you spent all your time studying Scripture,
and by the way, they really only focused on the first five books of the Bible,
Moses, they considered themselves to be experts in Moses,
and they had a kind of wooden literalistic way of interpreting the books of Moses.
And so Jesus, it's no coincidence that Jesus brings up the example of Moses, right?
Because what he's essentially saying is,
you guys go around talking like you're experts in Moses,
and that you know everything about Moses,
and you've studied these books, and that's your whole deal.
And yet, at the end of the day, you have no idea what this text actually means.
You're missing what's right in front of your face.
And he's exposing their ignorance.
And based on everything we know about the Sadducees,
they didn't study Scripture in order to ultimately know and have a relationship
and be close to God.
They studied Scripture because they wanted to be the smartest people in the room.
Their mastery and expertise on these texts
was one of the ways they maintained status and superiority in their culture.
And their focus was primarily around maintaining status and power.
And maybe you've been in a church or a culture like this
where your knowledge of the Bible is its own kind of status symbol.
Imagine that on steroids.
So that's what it was like for the Sadducees.
They were the experts.
They were the final word on Moses.
And they really did a lot.
Pretty much anything and everything they did was connected to their desire for power,
including the fact that, as you may know,
Rome was the occupying force.
Rome occupied Israel.
They were the bad guys.
Well, the Sadducees had sided with the Romans.
So people hated them.
That's why there's not monuments that celebrate the legacy of the Sadducees.
Nobody liked them.
Because they did this naked power grab
and sided with the occupying force.
So their study of Scripture was about maintaining status.
And so the point is this.
Just as it is possible to have biblically sound doctrine
and yet have a heart that's far from God,
so it is possible to spend all of your time studying the Scriptures
and to be ignorant of their meaning at the same time.
You can be an expert in the Scripture,
be able to quote it off the top of your head
and to be fully ignorant of its meaning.
And a lot of that comes down to motive.
Right?
A lot of times in church you hear sermons and say,
we should study Scripture more.
Absolutely.
But it's also important to ask, why?
What is the point of studying Scripture?
Because there are people who spend a lot of time studying Scripture,
but for different reasons.
Like there are some people like the Sadducees
who study Scripture simply because they want to be
the smartest people in the room.
You know, you're the person who,
whenever there's a question in Sunday school,
whenever there's a debate, right,
when you're at your small group
and somebody's trying to lead a Bible study,
and you're the person who,
you have to have all the answers.
And you're studying Scripture is kind of like,
you know, loading up bullets
so that you can be fully loaded,
locked and loaded, ready to go,
so that when that opportunity comes,
bam, see, I'm the smartest person in the room.
Some people study Scripture purely
out of a desire to accumulate knowledge.
You see that a lot in academia.
People have no relationship with the Lord at all,
but they spend a lot of time studying Scripture
because in the world of academia,
in the world of scholarship,
that could be a means of personal advancement.
You know, we used to call,
we used to jokingly call seminary, cemetery
because it's very easy
when you're studying Bible and theology
on an academic level,
it's very easy for your faith to dry up
because it starts to not be about
having a relationship with the Lord.
It starts to be about that paper
that you have to write
or that test that you have to take.
Or you begin to go down
these esoteric rabbit holes
of people debating
how many angels can dance
on the head of a pen kind of issues, right?
So it can very quickly become
a kind of cemetery experience
if you're not careful
and if you don't keep the focus in mind,
what's it really about,
having a relationship with the Lord?
Some people study Scripture
because they already have in mind
the conclusions they want to draw.
And so the Bible is really just a means
to justify that preconceived,
predetermined end.
One word for that is eisegesis.
You're reading your own ideas
and preferences and agendas
into the text.
Right, so these are ways
that we can spend a lot of time
and energy studying the Bible
and yet our hearts can be very far from God.
It's what's going on with the Sadducees.
The central aim of Scripture, friends,
is to bring us into relationship
with the living God.
That is why we have this gift of the Bible.
And if we're not reading Scripture
with a desire to know
and be in relationship with God,
if we're not sitting down
and opening up this text
and saying, God,
I want to hear you through your word.
I want you to speak to me.
Just as I might sit down with my wife
and say, I want to know you better.
I want to understand
what makes you tick.
I want to understand
what's going on in your heart
and what you love
and what you care about.
Right, if that's not the way
we approach the Scripture,
then we're missing something
very central to why
God has entrusted them to us.
Don't forget how Satan
tempts Jesus in the wilderness.
He quotes Scripture.
Knew it by heart.
These are the two obstacles
preventing the Sadducees
from knowing and having
a relationship with God.
It's a deadly combination
of arrogance and ignorance.
And what you see again and again
in the Scripture
is that arrogance plus ignorance
equals spiritual blindness.
Arrogance plus ignorance
equals spiritual blindness.
You can have all the right doctrines.
You can have the whole Bible memorized.
And yet, if arrogance and ignorance
are issues in your heart,
you're not going to have
any real relationship
with the Lord.
So for all of us,
as I said earlier,
who are Christians,
to the extent that either
of these things is true of us,
we need to be on guard.
If we are inclined
to hold our beliefs
in ways that engender smugness
toward people who disagree,
or if our goal in studying the Bible
is anything other than knowing
and having a relationship with God,
we need to be very careful with that.
Now, how does Jesus respond?
Here's Jesus' response.
You know, we don't see this
in Luke's Gospel,
but if you compare,
the same story shows up
in Matthew and Mark.
And in their versions of the story,
Jesus responds to the Sadducees,
and he says,
you are in error
because you do not know
the Scriptures
or the power of God.
He's diagnosing the problem.
He's saying, in other words,
in order to remove
these heart obstacles
and have a relationship with God,
you need two things.
Number one,
you need to be humbled
by God's power.
You need to be humbled
by God's power.
And number two,
you need to rightly understand
God's Word.
Don't just know what it says,
but understand what it really means,
what it's really pointing to.
So I want to look at
each of those in turn.
First of all,
you need to be humbled
by God's power.
In order to have
a relationship with God,
you have to be humbled.
In their arrogance,
the Sadducees assumed
that the resurrection life
would be just like this life,
right?
Because they're imagining
that reality has to conform
to our expectations.
Otherwise, it can't be true.
And so that's why
they come up
with this absurd scenario
of all these resurrected
husbands, brothers,
kind of walking around
trying to figure out
who's married to whom.
And Jesus essentially exposes
how small-minded that is.
He's essentially saying,
you vastly underestimate
who God is.
And you vastly
and tragically underestimate
how big this world is.
And you vastly underestimate
the life that is to come.
It's a failure of imagination.
In your arrogance,
you don't realize
how profoundly small-minded
you actually are.
And he goes on
to give us this glimpse
of the fact
that the resurrection life
is going to be so much more
than any human being
can possibly fathom.
He says there's no longer
going to need to be marriage.
There's no longer going to be
a need for childbearing
because there's no longer
going to be any death.
And it's a way of saying
that even the best relationships
that we experience now
in this life,
the best friendship,
the best marriage,
right,
the best family
with the best kids,
even that is just
the tiniest glimmer
of the life
that will one day be
and of that
which will be true
for all people.
Even the best marriage
in this life
pales in comparison
to the average
normal relationship
that will exist
between you
and every other human being
as well as with God
which is profoundly comforting
to those of us
who aren't married
or who find ourselves
in hard, difficult marriages
or who struggle
with loneliness.
Jesus is saying
the norm
in the life to come,
the norm
will be so much greater
that when we look back
marriage will look like
the tiniest little preview.
It'll be just
the tiniest glimmer
of normative daily life
for people
in the age to come.
And he says
we need to be humbled
by that reality.
It's beyond our ability
to imagine.
This reminds me
of this wonderful parable
from Henry Nowen.
If you've ever read the book
Our Greatest Gift
and Henry Nowen
he sort of imagines
in this parable
twins
a brother and a sister
who are in the womb.
So they're waiting
to be born
and they're talking
to one another
because there's no one else
and they're having
a debate
about whether or not
there is such a thing
as life after birth.
So here's where it starts.
The sister said
to the brother
I believe there is
life after birth.
Her brother
protested vehemently.
No, no
this is all there is.
This is a dark
and cozy place
and we have nothing
else to do
but cling to the cord
that feeds us.
The little girl
insisted
there must be something
more than this dark place.
There must be
something else
a place with light
where there's freedom
to move.
Still she could not
convince her
twin brother.
After some silence
the sister says
hesitantly
I have something
else to say
and I'm afraid
you won't believe
that either
but I think
there's a mother.
Her brother
became furious.
A mother?
He shouted.
What are you
talking about?
I've never seen
a mother.
You've never seen
a mother.
Who put that idea
into your head?
As I told you
this place
is all we have
why do you
always want more?
This is not
such a bad place
after all.
We have all
we need
so let's just
be content.
The sister
was quite overwhelmed
by her brother's
response
and for a while
didn't dare
say another word
but she couldn't
let go
of her thoughts
and since she
had only her
twin brother
to speak to
she finally said
don't you feel
these little
squeezes?
every once
in a while
they're quite
unpleasant
and sometimes
even painful?
Yes
he answered
what's so special
about that?
Well
the sister said
I think
those squeezes
are there
to get us
ready for
another place
much more
beautiful
than this place
where we'll
see our mother
face to face
don't you think
that's exciting?
the brother
didn't answer
he was fed
up
with the foolish
talk of his
sister
and felt
that the best
thing
would be
simply to
ignore her
and hope
that she
would leave
him alone
a child
in a womb
cannot
possibly
fathom
cannot
possibly
imagine
that there
would be
any such
thing
as life
after birth
a child
in a womb
cannot imagine
what it would
be like
to run
through a
field
cannot
imagine
what it
would be
like
to dance
under the
stars
a child
in a womb
cannot
fathom
what it
would be
like
to taste
chocolate
or to
see
the Alps
for the
first time
or to
listen to
a symphony
or to
swim
in the
ocean
a child
cannot
fathom
in the
same way
we cannot
possibly
fathom
the resurrection
life
we simply
know
that it
will be
orders
of
magnitude
greater
than
this
life
a child
in the
womb
cannot
fathom
the
concept
of a
mother
right
because
their
mother
is all
around
them
you might
say
in her
they live
and move
and have
their being
cannot
fathom
what it
would be
like
to meet
that
mother
face
to
face
and so
it is
friends
with
God
and the
point
is this
the key
to faith
is having
the humility
to recognize
that if we
really and truly
are dealing
with the
God of
the universe
if we're
dealing with
the God
who created
space
and time
if we're
dealing with
the author
of existence
itself
there are
going to be
many mysteries
that go
way beyond
our ability
to comprehend
and you say
well does that
mean that we
can't be
certain of
anything
we can't
know
anything
absolutely
not
but here's
the point
faith is
not about
having
100%
certainty
on all
of your
beliefs
it's not
about having
100%
certainty
faith
is a
willingness
to stake
your life
on what
you believe
being true
it's not
about having
100%
certainty
that it's
true
it's about
a willingness
to stake
your life
on it
being true
and that
is a
very
different
thing
because
you can
do that
while
having
doubts
right
you say
where do
you see
that
well look
at the
father
whose son
is demon
possessed
and he
cries out
to Jesus
and he
says I
believe
help my
unbelief
he's
filled
with
doubt
no
certainty
there
but based
on everything
he knows
he's willing
to throw
himself
at the
feet
of
Jesus
right
the
point
is this
it's
not
the
quantity
of our
faith
that
saves
us
it's
the
object
of
our
faith
and a
willingness
even
filled
with
doubt
to
throw
yourself
at
the
feet
of
Jesus
is
all
it
requires
and I
think
sometimes
this
desire
for
100%
certainty
is really
a desire
to not
have to
rely
on faith
to not
have to
throw
ourselves
at the
feet
of someone
greater
than
ourselves
it's a
desire
for control
to manage
rather than
to surrender
so we
need to
be humbled
by the
power
of
God
and the
second
thing we
see here
in Jesus
response
is that
we need
to rightly
understand
God's
word
even
though
the
Sadducees
claim to
be
experts
on
Moses
Jesus
says
you
have
no
idea
what
you're
talking
about
it's
right
in
front
of
your
face
I'm
right
in
front
of
your
face
and
you're
missing
it
you know
when
Moses
encounters
God
in
the
burning
bush
God
refers
to
himself
by
saying
I
am
the
God
of
Abraham
and
the
God
of
Isaac
and
the
God
of
Jacob
he
doesn't
say
I
was
their
God
when
they
were
alive
they
worshipped
!
I
am
their
God
in
other
words
they're
here
with
me
right
now
worshipping
and
praising
and
celebrating
I
continue
to be
their
God
because
they
continue
and
the
Sadducees
were
ignorant
of the
fact
that
the
death
is
for
eternity
from
the
very
beginning
and
that
death
is
an
aberration
from
that
norm
death
is
not
a
part
of
the
plan
for
all
time
it's
a
symptom
of
a
world
broken
by
human
sin
and
rebellion
and
of
course
the
Sadducees
completely
missed
the
fact
that
God's
plan
is
ultimately
to
overcome
death
once
and
for
all
as
the
prophet
Isaiah
writes
in
chapter
25
God
will
swallow
death
forever
and
as
the
Lord
God
will
wipe
away
tears
from
all
faces
and
of
course
this
is
ultimately
all
pointing
to
and
will
ultimately
be
found
in
Jesus
Christ
himself
in
the
chapters
that
follow
Luke
chapter
20
Jesus
is
going
to
be
arrested
he's
going
to
be
mocked
he's
going
to
be
tortured
he's
going
to
be
executed
and
it
seems
as
though
death
had
the
final
say
the
final
word
until
some
of
Jesus
his
disciples
some
women
go to
the
tomb
and
the
unthinkable
has
happened
the
tomb
is
open
and
it's
empty
and
Jesus
is
nowhere
to
be
found
and
they
realize
that
all
of
this
unfolding
story
of
scripture
was
ultimately
meant
to
culminate
here
in
the
truth
that
we
proclaim
every
Easter
that
Christ
is
risen
!
disciples
encounter
him
a little
bit
later
in
Luke's
gospel
on
the
road
to
Emmaus
and
he
sits
with
them
and
he
opens
the
scriptures
and
he
shows
do
you
want
to
know
how
to
understand
scripture
and
to
know
what
it
actually
means
well
the
key
is
this
it
was
always
and
forever
about
me
every
page
every
sentence
every
word
from
Genesis
to
Revelation
is
ultimately
about
and
pointing
to
and
will
always
about
me
that's
the
puzzle
piece
in
the
middle
that
makes
the
whole
thing
fit
together
so
in
order
to
rightly
understand
God's
word
that's
the
key
we have
to
understand
it
was
always
about
Jesus
all
along
and
then
we
realize
that
the
promise
for
us
is
that
one
day
just
as
Jesus
rose
from
death
God
will
raise
us
up
and
then
he
will
renew
and
restore
this
world
that
the
resurrection
is
just
the
beginning
but
simply
knowing
this
is
not
enough
as
Jesus
says
in
verse
35
only
those
who
are
considered
worthy
will
take
part
in
the
age
to
come
but
this
is
the
good
news
of
the
gospel
the
good
news
of
the
gospel
is
he
does
not
say
only
those
who
prove
themselves
worthy
he
says
only
those
who
are
considered
worthy
those
who
are
counted
worthy
by
God
and
that's
where
the
gospel
begins
to
emerge
as
our
greatest
hope
that
the
way
to be
found
worthy
comes
not
by
proving
our
worth
to
God
but
actually
by
confessing
our
unworthiness
to
God
and
then
crying
out
for
the
mercy
that
God
offers
through
Jesus
Christ
to
make
us
worthy
right
to
cleanse
us
and
restore
us
to
what
we
were
created
to
be
which
of
course
happens
through
the
death
and
resurrection
of
Jesus
and
the
promise
of
the
gospel
is
that
for
all
people
who
come
to
Jesus
in
faith
and
repentance
they
will
be
saved
and
we
will
dwell
forever
together
in
eternity
because
our
God
is
not
the
God
of
the
dead
he
is
the
God
of
the
!
let's
pray
Our
Father we
thank you
that you're
the God
of the
living
and that
you
desire
to make
us
alive
spiritually
alive
and that's
what we're
here for
we're here
for life
we're here
to taste
the
life
that you
offer
to receive
it
and be
nourished
by it
and even
now as we
pray these
words we
ask that you
would be
preparing our
hearts
to come
and receive
that life
through the
table
Lord
that as we
receive you
we would
receive that
life Lord
that you
would make
us
continue to
make us
more fully
alive
more fully
human
in anticipation
of the
age to
come
we pray
this in
Jesus's
name
Amen