The Lord’s Supper

He’ll be playing on the keyboard, leading in worship, and he will deliver the word. Jaycee will be in Toronto speaking at a church that she worked with for several years in Toronto, and I’ll be on my way to the Maritimes. But this place is in good hands with Ken Bombay.

And to entice you to be here, not like you need that when Ken’s coming, but we’ve got this sign-up sheet because we’re serving someone. I use the word we. Dinner is served next Sunday, and we need to know approximately how many are coming.

So if you didn’t sign up, please do so. All we need is a name, just to identify who you are, one name, two names, and a number beside your name indicating how many are in your party. We’re getting very, very organized here.

How many in your party? Do you want a table by the window or would you like to be? First Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul says, I have received of the Lord that which I’ve already delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed, he took bread. Did you ever notice in the scriptures whenever Jesus got his hands on bread, he always broke it. And having given thanks, he said, take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you.

This do in remembrance of me. And after the same manner, also he took the cup when they had finished eating their supper. This cup is the New Testament in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink in remembrance of me. As often as you eat the bread and as long as you drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death till he come. Whoever shall eat the bread, drink the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. I’m going to finish the reading there and tell you that obviously the theme and the focus this morning is on the Lord’s table. It’s not our table, it’s his table.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned how the church, it’s just like every other organization, leave them alone for a little while without guidance and they’ll mess things up. I’m gonna deal with another one this morning. Gonna talk about this supper, the Lord’s supper and what’s it really, really all about because it has been changed in so many ways and to the point of ridiculous and I’m gonna show you these things this morning.

We’ve come to know this as the last supper because it was instituted by Jesus. It was the last supper that he had with his disciples. It’s recorded in Matthew, it’s recorded in Mark and in Luke and the Apostle Paul, as we’ve just seen and heard, he gives record of the same thing, especially to the church in Corinth but when he was writing to the church in Corinth, he was writing it as a disciplinary measure.

He was quite upset with what the church in Corinth had done. By the time he wrote that, it was probably 50 years, at least 47 years since the death and the resurrection of Christ. A lot can happen in that many years and a lot of things did happen.

So he was writing to them in the church of Corinth and he said, I’m not impressed with what I hear about. Breaking of bread to the early church, it was the centrifugal force that held them together, the Lord’s Supper and they came to call it a love feast. So they were getting something right.

They were getting something right, a love feast. Today in other churches, it’s called the Eucharist. I’m not gonna bore you with where that word came from.

I don’t like that word, I don’t like to use it. It has some value but it’s lost, it’s lost. They called it a love feast because it was a time when they shared their love with one another.

Everybody brought food, we would call it a potluck thing. It eventually got degenerated from a potluck thing where everybody brings a dish and everyone’s welcome to participate but the poor people brought a piece of stale bread and the rich people, they brought something from their favorite restaurant, including cranberries, gravy, your favorite vegetable and they would sit with their rich friends over here and dine and the poor people, of course, they’d sit over there and eat their crust of bread and Paul the Apostle got ticked off and he said, you have lost your mooring, you’re all mixed up and I’m not impressed with where you’ve gone. The church over the years became more and more organized and the more organized you get, the possibility is the more organized you get, the further you get from the original truth that you were called to be part of.

This table and what Jesus did with his disciples as recorded in the three gospels and in Paul’s epistles, it had Jewish roots because it was based on the Passover and when Jesus got together with his disciples for the final supper that he had with them, it was something that was being celebrated in every Jewish house in Jerusalem and in every little nook and cranny all over Israel, it was Passover evening and they were celebrating the time, as you recall, from what in Egypt when a lamb was slain and they partook of it and it was very specific how that meal was to transpire in the homes in Egypt, it had to be done just right, perfectly. 

So now the Passover supper is being celebrated in Jerusalem and Jesus says to his disciples, go and find this place in an upper room, everything will be just fine, you go and so when they arrived, everything was as he had suggested to them. So the Jewish ritual of Passover was now being somewhat replaced, although many Jewish people in those days, I’m sure they still celebrated the Passover when that day came, but now they were having another meal.

See, the Passover was a meal, but it was a spiritual ritual. So now the church, every time they got together, mark that down, every time they met, it involved food, it was a love feast every time they got together and so as the church continued on, there was an evolution so that eventually, maybe because of Paul’s stern warnings to them, they separated the institution of the bread and the wine, they separated it about the year 50, about the year 50 and now they would have a church service and they might have had a meal like we’re gonna have next Sunday, they may have done so and they probably did, but they separated the meal from this time. 

So when Jesus did it, it says during the supper, he took a cup, he took the bread, oh, he took the bread and then later, he took the fourth cup and the fourth cup, as I shared with you recently, the fourth cup was called the cup of blessing, gotta mark that down, the cup of blessing, it was the fourth cup in the meal, it was a tradition that Jesus set and when the fourth cup was being passed around because it says after they had finished the supper, Jesus took the cup, well, everybody understood it, we can put it back in there, the fourth cup, he took the fourth cup and he said, you drink of it, I will not drink of it tonight, I will drink of it with you in the kingdom.

So that’s why it’s called the cup of blessing, it’s called the cup of blessing because it’s looking forward the first three cups were celebrating what Jesus had done, but the fourth cup was celebrating soon and very soon, we are going to see the king, that was what the fourth cup was all about. So when you realize that, some other things are gonna start to come into play, 

the breaking of bread was significant because it spoke of the breaking of his body and when Jesus took the bread and he broke it, he said, first of all, this is my body, so this is my body, he’s doing this little illustrated sermon, this is my body and it’s gonna be shredded and it’s gonna be done for you and after he broke it, he made it possible for them to break it more and more, they participated in the breaking and as they were taking it, surely they were remembering not to drop it on the floor, they were remembering what Jesus had said, this is my body broken for you, now eat it, it’s not recorded, but I believe that it was very possible that Jesus in order to make sure that they didn’t miss the gravity of this, he said, Peter, what did you just eat? I ate the bread, I just ate the bread, but Peter, what did I, it’s your body, so where’s my body now? 

And Peter said, a little bit of is in each every one of us, there’s a little bit of it in each one of us, not the whole loaf, a portion and from that evening, they were beginning maybe to catch on that we’re gonna become the bread, as a father has sent me, so send I you and that as you speak the word of God and you touch someone’s life here and touch someone’s life there, you are feeding them my body, what I accomplished on Calvary, it’s a beautiful picture, but the fourth cup was moving on from here to the fourth cup, the celebration of soon and very soon, we’re gonna be with Jesus, what does the word communion mean?

First Corinthians 10 and verse 16, the cup of blessing, Paul says, oh, we just heard about that, didn’t we? The fourth cup, the cup of blessing as it was known, which we bless, which we give thanks for, which we celebrate, remember he said, do this and as often as you do, it’s to remember me until I come, and drink the fourth cup with you in the heavenly place, the cup of blessing, which we get excited about and thank God for, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break and consume, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we though many, we though many are now one loaf, we are now one loaf, we are now one body, for we’ve all partaken of that bread. I want you to see something with me, what is Paul’s topic here, in order to get the core of what he’s communicating, you’ve got to read the whole chapter, you’ve got to take verses like this in their context.

Paul’s communicating to them and we’ve lost it, this is not an event, see when I was a child, it was never explained to me what communion’s about, communion was an event, in our church the habit was first Sunday of every month, an event, it was never meant to be an event, soon as we say the word communion, we think about the bread and the wine, that’s where we go, they had something right when they first started, it’s a love feast, and we’re eating together, we’re sharing together, we’re partaking of each other’s food, and in effect we’re partaking of each other’s life, oh who made this? 

Who made, this one’s delicious, this is wonderful, some years ago April and I were with Freddie and Mickey Fulford, they were the pastors of a new church called Mississauga Gospel Temple, it’s over in Mississauga, and we were having an evening with them, I think we stayed overnight with them that night, and so Mickey said, I got the funniest story to tell you, she said, our ladies get together, they have little luncheons and so on, so everybody got together, and everybody brought some sandwiches, some brought some pickles, and some brought a little salad, and she said, everybody was saying, oh I love this one, and it was a sandwich with tuna, and everybody’s eating down the tuna, and somebody just wistfully said, this is delightful, who put together the tuna salad? 

And this very elderly lady spoke up and she says, well that would be me, what’s the secret to your beautiful, now they were playing with her, come on, it’s a tuna salad sandwich, I mean how crazy can this get? But they’re just playing with her, but they’re trying to make her feel good, what’s the secret? What’s the secret of your ingredients? She said, I just think it’s very simple, she said, I always use the same tuna, you know, the one with the kitty on it, true story, true story, she loved the one with the kitty, when you find something good, you stay with it, hello? Everybody brought some food, and there was something deliciously, spiritually deep about that, my wife brought some, your wife brought some, and we all participated it, it was a love feast. 

We love to bring the food, and we love to share it, it was something that we always looked forward to, to the point where Paul said, I’m not impressed, he said it started this way, that in the middle of the Passover feast, a spiritual dynamic, a special night, when we’re remembering the miraculous deliverance of our forefathers from the Egyptian bond, that was spiritual, and they ate the lamb that night in the Passover feast, it was a celebration of God’s intervention, and you’ve turned it into a party, well, I said, I’m not impressed. 

So interesting that when you read from historical annals, I’m not getting everything that I shared with you out of scripture, I’m digging. 

I’m listening to Jewish scholars, I’m listening to people from every which where, and so here it comes out from some of the early church fathers, that they mentioned that this feast, this process, it became, I guess it became cumbersome in Jerusalem, because the church was, think about having a potluck supper with three or 4,000 people, think about it, we don’t know how that was arranged, but it probably became very cumbersome, and so some of the early, early studiers, the historical writers of the time said, and so some of these people started breaking up. 

Because getting together with thousands of people, you know, yuck, they’re talking whatever, he said, they started having the communion, the love feast in their homes, cliques were forming, the rich people invited their best friends, and the poor people, so when the rich people had theirs, the group came to their lovely home, and this is interesting, there was recently a digging that happened in Jerusalem, this is important, and somehow they know it was a Christian home, and as they dug down, this is down through the layers of rubble, you know, Jerusalem’s been built so many times, layer upon layer upon layer, and as they dig down, they can find certain times of history, and they found this elaborate house.

It had a room in it large enough to accommodate, they figured, exactly 44 people, and so the concept would be, it’s kind of busy over at the temple, they’re getting together and having the feast, come over to my house, so the rich people had a seating for 40 some, and the poor people, they just had like a one room shanty made of mud, and they probably sat out underneath a tree, so it was really kind of, it was moving right along, I wanna bring this to your attention, you know I’m not a Greek scholar, and forgive me for dumping Greek on you every once in a while, but I’m finding it to be actually quite important, the word communion, where’s that word come from? It means come.

 It means union, union, communion, come and it means come with, come with us, communion means a gathering of people, oh I thought it meant, you know we eat the bread, drink the cup, and it happens every Sunday, no, no, communion, communion to them, was not about this, communion was about coming together in unity, Psalm 133, behold how blessed wonderful it is, when God’s people come together in unity, there the Lord commands a blessing, unity, unity, unity, this unity will destroy a local church, some of you may have seen the same, so I’m not a scholar, but I do follow one scholar, I’m sure he’s long gone now, his name was Thayer, doesn’t matter, but I really track him, and so he’s one of the Greek scholars, who brought this to my attention, blew my doors off. 

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not thee, is it not thee, communion of the blood of Christ, the bread is it not thee, communion of the body of Christ, Thayer and many other wise scholarly people say, it probably should read, the cup of blessing, is it not a communion of the blood, the bread is it not a communion of the body, what’s the difference pastor Dave.

This, this is the communion, or this is one way of come with us, this is one way that we celebrate the Lord, this is not taking away from the value of the bread, his body, not taking away from the blood, but when we say this is the communion, we make it an event, we make it an event. 

I never understood, on a Sunday morning in our church, I wasn’t allowed to drink the cup, you’re too young, I was so excited when I gave my heart to Jesus, and my grandmother said, this Sunday David we’re having communion, and you get to take the bread and the cup out, so I think I told you this, the bread came, I ate it, the cup came, I drank it, and my friend Wayne, sitting right beside me said, I said what’s wrong, he said, you should not have done that, I said why, you have to wait, you have to wait till the preacher prays over the bread, you have to wait till the pastor prays over the cup, you just drank damnation to your soul, you’re lost again, you’re a sinner again.

I went home to my grandmother, I was almost a tear, I said grandma you’ll never believe what I did, I ate and drank damnation to my soul, she said where have you been, to me it was an event, how much fellowship, how much coming with was involved in that event, it’s hard to have fellowship, there’s Gary Bergman, have you enjoyed the fellowship with the back of Mike Howard’s head this morning, how did that go for you, good, he said it’s easier than his face, no, no you didn’t say that, we sit like an army, all lined up everybody, you got your nice clothes on, you combed your hair down right, and we call that fellowship, it’s nothing of the kind, it’s fellowship with the Lord, we come together and it’s something special. 

I’m not denigrating but I’m saying, it’s thin, it’s way for thin, when we come together and we’re sitting regimented like this I don’t have a problem with how we sit, there’s not 150 ways we can sit in this place, unless it’s COVID then we can sit in a lot of ways, but fellowship is partaking together, fellowship means association, it means community, commune, come with, community, it means joint participation, it means intercourse, interrelationship, the share which one has in anything, participation, it means intimacy, fellowship means intimacy. 

I’ve done this a few times in years past, at the close of a service I said, you know what Paul’s admonition to the church was, I said I’m not putting this on, it says, greet one another with a holy kiss, so pucker up, I said give somebody a hug around the neck, and we did so, and people kind of chuckled and some people were embarrassed, don’t touch me, I’m vaccinated, the people, I love this European thing, all over Europe this happens, and I won’t say which country, some countries they don’t, but you’ll meet somebody, ladies, the men, the men, the mafia when they get together they kiss each other, on each side.

I guess we learned it from the mafia, but this is something they did in the early church, they greeted one another with a holy kiss, it was a sanctified moment, where a person was saying I appreciate you, I love you, that’s communion, communion’s not an event, a gift jointly contributed a collection, a contribution, exhibiting embodiment and proof of fellowship. 

Now religious scholars love this, and as the church got more and more teaching, they got carried away, and they started teaching things, that there’s no biblical basis for whatsoever, they made the taking of communion to be magical, that’s called superstition, and it’s happening in a lot of churches, not very far from where you’re sitting right now. 

It’s a superstitious thing, they believe that if you take that cup, and you eat that wafer, something transpires inside, whether you feel it or not, you are now closer to the father, something superstitious, it’s magical, take the cup, eat the wafer, there you’re good, people would go to a communion service, known as a, sorry, as a mass, and they would go there as guilty as Job’s uncle, they would take the wafer, drink the cup, and there, I’m glad that’s over with.

There, I’m all clear again, superstitious, they’ve actually been taught, that when you eat the bread, and you drink the cup, at that moment, you’re a partaker of his divine nature, no, no, we’re remembering, and for each of us, in the remembrance, there will be certain levels of spiritual dynamic, but it’s not common among us, some of us are looking at our watch, and can’t wait to get going, it’s lunchtime, somebody’s worried about their child in the nursery, the service is going long, my little kid needs his crackers, we’ve got a luncheon engagement, we got to get going here, okay, okay, and away they go, what’s magical about that, what is celebrated in so many churches, is that there’s no resemblance whatsoever, to the evening of the last supper. 

Nothing, nothing, there’s nothing resembling, what used to be the cup, the cup of blessing, is now called a chalice, the plate that the bread is now served on, is called the pattern, and the whole service is now called the Eucharist, and what used to be a table, is now the altar, so you see we’ve made it, these adornments, and these illustrious words, I don’t know why we took it there, I say we, I’m just saying, communion means to come, and to be together in union. 

I remember the first weekend at Brayside camp, when the PAOC decided, we need to have a Holy Spirit weekend, the last weekend of August, it was always the Labor Day weekend, and they called me and they said, David it’s gonna be the first, it’s gonna be Holy Spirit weekend, you’re the guy, you’re the guy that can teach, and preach on the Holy Spirit come, and you leave, so I preach Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and on Monday.

I said, let’s have communion, and so everybody organizing, we had communion, and on that morning I taught them, that when you partake, and you eat this bread, and you drink this cup, you are declaring before the heaven’s angels, you’re declaring before the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, I’m one with these people, I don’t have anything against anyone here, I’m living as good a life as I know how, but I said this gathering together, is not about the bread and the cup, the bread and the cup is a common thing, that brings us together to say, I love you, and if ever you’re hurting, I’ve got your back. 

Lady came to me and she said, I’ve never heard anything like that in my whole life, I’ve been taking communion first Sunday morning, all my life, and she said, I never came to realize, it’s not just about my relationship with Jesus, it’s about my relationship with you, you’ve got to be in union, communion with him, in order to be in communion with the rest of us, very wise man went to the Chevrolet dealership, and he ordered a brand new Chevy, doesn’t matter what year, he got a phone call and said, your Chev arrived, and we deliver, okay, bring it over. 

A great big truck came with a big crane outfit on it, with a hook on it, and this gentleman looks out the window, what’s this? And the crane is picking up this huge box of hair, a big crate, and he’s swinging it over into this man’s driveway, and then another crate and another crate, until it was like a small mountain of all these boxes, and he ran out, and he said to the driver, what do you do? What is this? He says, I don’t know, I just got this thing here, as I’m supposed to deliver a Chevrolet, I’m expecting a Chevrolet, where is it? 

He said, it’s in those boxes, he said, I’m looking for a car, he said, well, this one comes with instructions, and you have to assemble it, listen to David, when I’m not in communion with him, and I come into this place with you, we’re a bunch of pieces, and we’re supposed to put it together, connected, partaking together, experiencing his presence together, so at the end of the service, someone turns and says, are we very far? 

Are we very far from Damascus right now? I guess so, why do you ask that? Well, as we were walking along this service, I thought I was on the road to Damascus, and the one with nail scarred hands joined us, and as he opened up the scriptures, my heart burned within me, that’s fellowship, or someone else says, I felt the same, communion with Jesus, his heart, his soul, his life, my heart, my soul, my life, Christ in you, the hope of glory, for me to live is Christ, and if you to live is Christ, then we have this bond, and when we come together, we don’t have to have roast beef and potatoes, I love it, I wish I was gonna be here next Sunday, they’re having my favorite meal, you’ll find out what it is when you get here, you’re gonna bring the dessert, coming together, as one loaf, union with Christ, is the basis for our union as a body. 

We speak with him, personally, with the words of our understanding, that’s called prayer, he speaks back through his word, that is communion, I’ve never heard his voice, I’ve had impressions, I’ve begged God to talk to him, I begged him to write on the wall, do something, heaven goes silent, he says, I did something on the cross, get over it, I speak to him, I cry out to him, and he speaks back, do you have to be reading the Bible for him to speak back? 

Think about this, here’s something that I practice by times, I’ll read a short portion, and I’ll close the book, and I’ll just be quiet before him, and all of a sudden, what I read, as I go through it word for word, what thought gripped me, and as I pause, and I don’t overthink, I just pause, and all of a sudden, things begin to happen in here, it’s like I hear his voice, and that’s better than hearing audible voice, because I’m using hearing aids now, so my hearing isn’t as good as it used to be.

But when you take this word, and you meditate on it, meditation is not hard work sister, you read it, and you sit and you’re quiet, some of the best times you’ll have with the Lord, is when you sit quietly, and allow him to speak, that’s communion, there was a book out years ago, I don’t have a copy of it, I don’t have a copy anymore, it’s called practicing the presence of Christ.

I was at a conference in Regina, I was a young preacher, very young, and a good friend of mine, was walking with me through the hall, and he knew everybody, and everybody knew him, everybody say, hey Bob, hi Bob, hey how you doing, everybody knew Bob, and I’m just running along, I’m his also ran, all of a sudden he said, stop, do you see that man over there, standing all alone by that wall, I said yeah. 

Do you know who that is? No, that’s Reverend Mark Buntane, how many have heard that name? Good, good, good, he was incredible, God spoke to him, he left Canada, and he reached out to the untouchables of India, he raised thousands out of the garbage dump, and out of the ditches, you talk about the love of Jesus, he said, would you like to meet him?

I said, I’ve heard his name, well yeah, and we walked over, I’m not making this up, Mark Buntane is standing against the wall, he’s all by himself, his hands are like this, his hand is over his mouth like this, and as we got close, his eyes are closed, he doesn’t know we’re close, the man’s speaking in tongues, all by himself against the wall, I told somebody that story, they said, if you ever meet him anywhere, you’ll be praying in the spirit, the man was in constant communion, Paul said, for me to live is Christ, communion. 

I gotta move on quick, the thing that touches me, is the side where we are in communion with him, then we’re having communion with one another, and the beautiful thing about having communion with one another, and this is the very opposite to the rich getting together, and eating their refined food, and then these other peasants over here eating a crust of bread, I pastored this church in London, I’ve told you about this before, and God started sending in people, it was crazy, in our church, that was running two Sunday morning services, packed to capacity, Sunday night packed to capacity.

Wednesday night full, full, full, people saved in every service, every service, baptizing 50 people every month, on average, I couldn’t know everybody, but I’d get phone calls, and I’d go to see, I had no staff, I did not have a secretary, when you’re running a revival center, you don’t need any staff, our door in the church was a revolving door, people came, they left, I didn’t know who they were anymore, I could identify the nuns, because they came in their habits, every Sunday morning, three and four people would come in, looking like penguins, and they would kneel down, sitting about the same place, they would kneel down, and they’d go like this, they’d sit in, somebody came to me and said, pastor, you gotta do something about that, I said, what? 

Well, you know, that weird stuff they do, I said, it’s not weird to them, well, what’s happening? I said, I think they’re kind of praying a little prayer, they’re acknowledging, I’m here, Lord, I said, what’s wrong with that? But this bothers me, I said, close your eyes and don’t look, in our churches, we sang together, we broke bread together, I would literally bring in loaves of bread, and I won’t go through all of this, but we took whole loaves of bread and we tore them up, and people would take a chunk of bread, we’d mess up the church, I’d say, take a piece of bread and go and break bread with somebody, walk up and say, my name’s John, can I break bread with you? 

People wept with people they’ve never met before, it was a love, this was a love feast, people had no idea when they broke bread with Carolyn, that she was a hooker, trying to get into the new, my life with Christ, we never knew where she was Saturday night, and I never asked, I reel in the fish, Jesus cleans them, I never talked to her about it, but I watched the change and the transition in her life, nobody knew that Art, the guy with very thin fading blonde hair, nobody knew that he was a dealer, his wife called me, said, you better get out, you think my art is an angel, she opened up the freezer, there was no meat, there was no bread, it was full of drugs.

She said, that’s your saint, nobody knew that Art was a dealer, nobody would catch on on a Sunday morning, cause Bill always came in dressed like everybody else, but he called me one night, he said, pastor, you better come over here, we gotta talk about something, I went, I knocked on the door, he shouted, the door’s open, when I went in, the room was quite dark, just a couple of little lights on, and there sat a full grown man with a mustache, he’s sitting there wearing ladies panties, and a ladies bra, and he’s smoking a big cigar. 

He said, hi pastor, I thought we ought to have a chat about something, I said, Bill, you scare me, people would come and give their life to Christ, and I wasn’t going around and inspecting them, I did the best I could, I was overwhelmed with what God was doing, I learned to have communion with people, that would not add up to any other church in the country, it was a wonderful, wonderful experience, oh, by the way.

 Jackson was a nudist, his wife came to me and said, what would you do? I said, well, I’m a man, so I wouldn’t live with him in the first place, let me tell you about the love that I had for him, the love bond, the communion thing, Daryl, I know you’re watching, listening to this, and maybe Elsie is not, and you can pass this on to her if you like, I know she’s in the hospital, but I’m reminding you, Daryl, of how I spoke to you just a couple of days ago, and I said, whenever Elsie’s name is mentioned in our house, I said, we weep, we love Elsie so much, how does it come about? 

Do you know how many people I’ve met in my life? Hundreds and hundreds of thousands, but Elsie’s special, why? Because we had communion with them, we became spiritual buddies, comes closer than that. Betty, you called me yesterday morning, what was it, 8.30? Our friend is in the hospital, Pastor Dave, I took her over to the hospital last night. We’re talking about Rose Monaghan.

I said, I’ll get there as soon as I can. I walked into the hospital, asked where I could find her, and when I walked into this little cubicle, because she was still in emergency, apparently she’s in her own room right now, I walked in, not knowing what I was gonna face, because I heard her medical condition. I saw the most beautiful smile, and Rose said, my pastor, that’s the biggest compliment you can pay to me.

That means my servant. We talked about some very delicate things that I won’t share with you today, about our future. I said, I might go before you, you know.

She laughed. She said, but we’re ready, aren’t we? I said, oh yes. I prayed with her.

And as I stepped back, and I’m about to turn away, I turned and I said, Rose, you know I love you. Big tears rolled down her cheeks. She said, I know, Pastor David, and I love you.

We’re not gonna do this today. You’re gonna get upset with me. We’ll catch it again.

Thank you, Irma. You prepared all of this. It was in the refrigerator this morning when we came.

I’ve used all of our time. I had communion with Rose yesterday in a hospital. We didn’t have bread.

We didn’t have wine. But we had communion. As a boy, communion was this.

I’ve learned this communion is one form of communion. But the communion I had yesterday morning with Rose was more delicious than this. Because our relationship, mine with Rose, is based on this.

And when I said, I love you, Rose, I was saying, we’ve partaken of the same bread. We’ve drank the same cup. We’re in unity here.

I want you to know that every time that I’ve stood in this pulpit and I’ve said to you, I love you, I want you to know that that’s a very clever thing to say. When I say, I love you, I’m not trying to gain brownie points or I’m not trying to win favor. I’m telling you something that’s a fire in here.

When somebody says to me, when are you gonna quit? I say, I can’t. I can’t, because I love you. And you know what warms my heart? I know you love me.

We’re doing much better. This is not a brag. It’s just authentic.

We’re doing better than the Corinthian church. We are doing better. We are.

Perfect? Nay, nay. But we’re doing okay. God bless you, Rose.

And whatever you have left, God bless you. Four liters of water they took off of her in the last few hours. Do the math.

Pray for it, Rose. Pray for Elsie. The Ukrainian lady’s name, Erica, help me.

Valen. Valen, like in Valentine’s. Valentina with an A at the end.

Pray for that name. How many children already? Six, and they just removed the seventh from her womb, trying to salvage that little cancer. Pray for Valentina.

Would you stand with me? I’m gonna try something, and then we’re gonna finish. You can turn off the internet if you didn’t already do so. Goodbye, everybody.

We love you, too.