SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE 3rd May.

I switched on the radio the other night and heard a debate about what people think happens in the Lord’s Supper (or Eucharist or whatever it is called in different churches) It was not a very edifying debate; maybe more words have been uttered and wasted on this topic than on any other in church history. Without getting into the detail of the present discussions I simply comment that we must remember that it is the Lord’s Supper; it is a symbolic meal in which Christ welcomes us points us to his cross, his death for us and in which we share together as we jointly trust in him. The really important thing is not the theological fine points but rather that we are confident that we meet with Jesus Christ. As the old Scots theologian said: You gets no new thing nor any other thing than you get in the preaching of God’s Word but you gets the same thing better! (Some Catechism references in the printed notes if you want some guidance for further thought.) So what you need for coming to the Lord’s table is not to be absolutely correct in your theology and doctrine with the precise understanding of the best Presbyterian teachers the central question is: Is Jesus Christ is Lord in your life? and do you want to do God’s will? For the LS gives us a profound illustration of what we pray in the Lord’s prayer your will be done on earth as in heaven. The LS assures us that God’s will has been and is and shall be done. It shows us that God’s love is unshakeable: Christ died for us, his blood does make us clean Christ is alive , we can have peace with God and new life. isn’t there a calm, a deep down certainty even looking at the symbols, and a great joy to receive them as a free gift unearned, undeserved, a profound sense that they are tokens of heavenly treasure? This came home to me as a young minister in the border area in the early ‘80s at a time of many murders, shootings & bombings when the people who gathered for one LS had good reason to wonder if they would be there the next time. What I was able to say to them was that whatever happens: even if our personal lives are blown apart, even if society disintegrates this supper is a promise of acceptance and security eternally It represents God’s will to provide for us, to forgive us, to gather us together, to save and keep us whatever happens.

If it reassures us that God’s will shall be done on earth the LS also challenges us as to whether or not his will is being done in our lives We come to the struggle that Jesus himself had in Gethsemane. It was one thing to break the bread and share the cup with his friends and say in the company of his friends those awesome words: This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you. Even though they hadn’t a clue about what was going to happen; even though they clearly didn’t understand what he really meant yet they were there with him, eating and drinking there was comfort in their companionship even as we get strength and comfort in eating & drinking together. But a little later on, in the garden of Gethsemane outside in the darkness and silence and loneliness it was different. Here Jesus agonised before his Father about his will being done while some of those same friends snored around him. They had all shared in the cup at the supper a symbol of his blood about to be poured out as a sacrifice. Now he struggles to take the cup of suffering symbolised at the supper My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will. In one way Jesus is just like us: it is an entirely human reaction to wish to avoid the cup of suffering - there was no sin in this struggle and shrinking from pain; in another way we are so often not like him because he accepted the Father’s will whereas we say my will be done! We have these two choices either to say to the Father Your will be done, and know ultimate joy whatever the pain of the moment or to hear God saying with sorrow to us on the last day of judgement Your will be done, when we condemn ourselves to be apart from God in darkness for ever.

We should only take the bread and wine if we are genuinely willing to say with Christ to the Father, not my will but yours. Of course we give thanks that Jesus said it first and most truly of all we give thanks that he did die a few hours later for us on the cross His is the one true perfect and complete sacrifice it is a guarantee of God’s love and God’s victory over all sin and evil but how can we remember him and take the tokens of his suffering and at the same time say to the Father: my will not yours? How can we, how dare we, fervently discuss what the LS means, and still say No to God: My will not yours. How can we, as so many do, receive the signs and deny the suffering?

But perhaps you are not here trying to block what God wants of you but you do struggle with it, (as David did in Psalm 40). You wonder what God’s will is as someone suffers deeply; as parents and children just don’t seem to be on the same planet; as a marriage fragments, as neighbours glower at each other; as someone struggles in a job that is too stressful; as another person struggles with not having a job to go to; and as things just don’t seem to work out despite all our prayers. The LS and this Gethsemane prayer of Jesus remind us not that we can always avoid trouble in this life by following Christ but that God can be right there with us in the difficulties and to those who say Yes to him he supplies strength and confidence that whatever happens, he is Lord, and the result will be good.

Lord, as we prepare to come to your table, help us to mean the words of the psalm to say Here am I, I desire/ I delight to do your will. As we take the bread and wine, help us to remember what it cost Jesus to do your will. May we then rejoice and rest in his perfect obedience and ourselves say: Not my will but yours be done

we pray for those who suffer who have cause to question what you are doing. May they find it is good to come near you and cast all their cares on you.

we pray for those in leadership in the church both in Kirk Session, Presbytery and in Church House to know your will and to set an example in doing it.

we pray for our government to know what you require to do justly to love mercy and top walk humbly with you. and we earnestly ask your guidance in the difficulties about decommissioning. May there be many who will ask: What do you desire, O God?

SOME PRINTED NOTES AVAILABLE AFTER SERVICE

If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us -- whatever we ask -- we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5. 14-15 p 1228

Shorter Catechism (modern version) 103 In the third request your will be done on earth as it is in heaven we pray that by his grace God would make us to have the capability and the will to know, obey and submit to his will in everything as the angels do in heaven.

We will soon get discouraged if our prayers are merely a way of expressing our self-will in the presence of the sovereign God. Instead of pitting our wills against God, true prayer happens only when our lives have been disorientated away from ourselves to become oriented on the will of God. Then I will begin to want the will of God for which I pray. James Houston

When God’s kingdom is embedded in our hearts, we will want nothing else but God’s will. This prayer looks forward in time to when God will fully bring his kingdom and his will upon earth. ... Prayer is to anticipate the time when God will remove all the human contradictions on earth. James Houston

To applaud the will of God, to do the will of God, even to fight for the will of God is not difficult ... until it comes at cross purposes with our will. Richard Foster

Shorter Catechism (modern version) 96 The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament in which bread and wine are given and received as Christ directed to proclaim his death. Those who receive the Lord’s supper in the right way share in his body and blood with all his benefits, not physically but by faith, and become spiritually stronger and grow in grace.

How should I prepare for the Lord’s Supper? (update of Presbyterian “Larger Catechism”) 171. Those who receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, before they come are to prepare themselves, by asking the following questions: Am I in Christ? What are my sins and needs? How true and how deep is my knowledge of God, faith and repentance, my love for God and other Christians, my concern for people? Do I forgive those who have done me wrong? Do I desire Christ, and how real is my new obedience? They are to continue and grow in these signs of God’s life in them, through serious meditation and vital prayer.