The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
It is right and a good and joyful thing. Therefore, Almighty God, with thankful hearts we praise you for the amazing love, grace, and forgiveness you gave to us through Jesus Christ. We thank you that you are every working to expand your Church.
We look towards that day when people from every corner of the Earth will flow toward your holy mountain. Where there is no East or West, where all are one in Christ Jesus.
And so we recount your story and remember the love that poured out from you - how your love has always been present and active in the world and manifest itself in Jesus, our Savior. How through the incarnation and resurrection, love became available to all.
And so we remember, on the night before he was betrayed and killed by the state, he was gathered together with his disciples at a table like this, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples and said:
"Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me."
When the supper was over, he took the cup, blessed it, gave it to his disciples and said:
"Drink from this, all of you. This is my blood of the New Covenant, poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
God’s love is present at this table - God’s love offered to you, God’s love offered to me, God’s love offered to all. Unconditional, unending, ever-present, ever reaching love. And so we pray:
Holy, Loving God, pour out your Spirit on us gathered here,
And on these gifts of bread and juice.
Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ
That we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed and reconciling.
Through your Son Jesus Christ,
With the Holy Spirit in your holy church,
All honor and glory is yours, almighty God,
Now and forever, Amen.
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