Each Sunday I am privileged to worship and share in Holy Eucharist with a people committed to serving GOD. It is an awesome responsibility and brings feelings of great joy, humility, gratitude, and occasionally frustration every single time.

We gather in word and song and prayer, lifting our bodies and our hearts and voices to GOD announcing that we are giving our thanks and praise.

We say that it is a good and joyful thing that we give thanks, joining with the angels, singing

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

We remember our relationship with GOD: all that has been done for us and with us and to help us; how we’ve squandered and fought and rejected the very love of GOD. We remember Jesus in teaching and in sacrifice.

Then we, together, call the Holy Spirit to be with us, blessing these instruments of bread and wine and to bless us as servants–the descendants of a long line of faithful people.

We, together, pray and bless and bring ourselves up to the holy mount and we praise GOD’s holy name, giving great thanks, and proclaiming, at the end, AMEN!

And in what should seem like a great dramatic letdown after all of this lifting up, we come together to share from a plate and a cup the same food and drink. Each of us, so very different, but when we come forward, we are one, sharing, giving, receiving.

For me, the most powerful moment has just begun. For it is here that we open ourselves and I am giving and seeing mouths move in song or embarrassed eyes diverted to the floor. But my favorite are the excited giddy faces of children elbowing in; too excited to wait their turn, but too gosh darn cute to be mad at. Each time I am reminded that in my hands is something worth elbowing to the front of the line for. In my hands is not the just deserts of a righteous life, but the very manifestation of GOD’s love and grace.

We all should want to elbow up to get a crack at these things.

And I am constantly amazed that anyone would want to wait. Or would make their children wait. To take a class. Or get to the right age. Or get mature enough to understand it.

The sacrament isn’t for understanding, it is for experiencing.

Tomorrow I’ll explain why I believe that is true.

 

And if you want to go a little deeper into the sacraments, check out my three-part series, which begins by defining a sacrament, wrestling with the historic questions about sacraments, and describing how we have always been forced to make hard choices about our sacraments.