Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "Living Witness" | Easterfest 2025 | April 20, 2025

Transcript

"Living Witness" | Easterfest 2025 | April 20, 2025 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

1:18
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for this morning.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Even though it might be really difficult for a lot of us to be here, we just thank you for bringing us all together to remember the risen Lord.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for being a reminder that we are living witnesses to the wondrous love that you give us here.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: That was that was pretty good, thank you, but I think it could do better.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Can we give a better thank you?
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh on Thursday night, we kind of opened up the space.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us were in the pre-room.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: It was honestly more organic than I thought.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: We all just ended up there uh singing our faith.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Man, what else do you do in this time?
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Except to gather and sing your faith.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And that's like I said at the beginning, that's the good news of our faith.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: The good news of our faith is that we're not gonna sit in Thursday.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: But that God's gonna rescue us through both the cross, like we just sang about in the blood, and through, did you hear what he say in that bridge?
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Through a resurrection.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: A resurrection hope.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm just so, so grateful uh that we can be here this morning.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: I want to give a message this morning that I'm calling Living Witness.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna pull this from John's Gospel.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: This is the 20th chapter from John's Gospel.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Hear now the reading of God's word.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Early in the morning of the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: She ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said, They have taken the Lord from the tomb.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: We don't know where they put him.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Peter and the other disciple.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: They left to go to the tomb.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: And they were running together, but the other disciple ran faster.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Always got to be a competition.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Than Peter and was the first to arrive at the tomb.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Bending down to take a look, he saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Following him, Simon Peter entered the tomb and saw the linen cloth lying there.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: He also saw the face cloth that had been on Jesus' head.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't with the other clothes, but was folded up in his own place.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Then the other disciple, the one who arrived at the tomb first, another reminder, also went inside.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: He saw and what?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Believed.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: They didn't yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Then the disciples returned to the place where they were staying.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Mary stood outside near the tomb and she was crying.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And as she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: She saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus had been.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: One at the head and one at the foot.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: The angels asked her, Woman, why are you crying?
4:28
SPEAKER_00: She replied, They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they've put him.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: As soon as she had said this, she turned around and she saw Jesus standing there.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: But she didn't know it was Jesus.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her woman, Why are you crying?
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Who are you looking for?
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Thinking he was the gardener, she replied, Sir, if you have carried him away, just tell me where you have put him.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And I will get him.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Mary.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: One word.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: She turned and said to him in Aramaic, Raboni, which means teacher.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to her, Don't hold on to me.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: For I haven't yet gone up to my father.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Go to my brothers and my sisters and tell them, I'm going up to my father and to your father and to my God and to your God.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Mary Magdalene left and announced to the disciples, I've seen the Lord.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Then she told them what he said to her.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, your word is a lamp into our feet, and it's a light to our path.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: God asked that it would speak to us, that it would speak through us, that your kingdom might be established on this earth.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts and our souls be acceptable this morning in your sight and in your sight alone.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, you are our rock and you are our redeemer.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: We love you because you first loved us.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your name.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: The Easter story, the story that we just read, in some form or fashion, exists in all four of the Gospels that are in your Bibles.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: That's actually like a premise for it becoming a gospel.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: It needed to have that story in order for it to get into the Bible.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: What I love the most, though, about John's is that John's is the only one that narrates Mary going to the tomb in the dark.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: It says that at the beginning of the scriptures, if you'll remember this with me, early in the morning on the first day of the week, and then he's specific to say, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: The other thing about it is that this centers around Mary Magdalene.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: It's the only story in all four Gospels that centers around Mary Magdalene.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Now you might be saying, why do I care about Mary Magdalene?
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's a fair question.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Because Mary Magdalene is a devoted follower of Jesus.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in Luke's gospel, uh she's described as having demons cast out of her by Jesus.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: So Mary Magdalene becomes a very good friend of Jesus.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a few things I just want to dispel for a second as we're talking about Mary.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: There are a few Marys in the Bible, okay?
7:30
SPEAKER_00: If you were here last week, we talked about Martha and Mary.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: If you were, or two weeks ago, I guess we were talking about Martha and Mary.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: There's obviously Mary, the mother of Jesus, and then there's Mary Magdalene.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, Mary Magdalene is often accused of being a prostitute.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: There is no scriptural evidence really of that at all.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: How that happened, I don't know.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Women, do you ever feel like you get treated some way that you don't deserve?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: You know?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Like I think maybe that happened a little bit, who knows?
7:55
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, Mary, her life has been changed by Jesus.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: That's super important here.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Her life has been changed by Jesus.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And she's so devoted that she's often called a disciple to the disciples.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: She's an apostle to the apostles because she is so devoted to Jesus, even though she's not one of the privileged twelve.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: So Mary, who cares deeply for him, goes to the tomb before dawn in the dark.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: In the dark.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: The darkness would be over your life.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of where she is.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's accidental that Mary goes in John's gospel, the one that centers around her, in the dark.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Because he's trying to tell us something about where Mary was.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Everything had been in the dark for her.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And like I said at the beginning, this campus, the greater Tallahassee area, we're there.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I was watching the news report, some of the students, some of them may be here this morning, saying, hey, I survived Parkland.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And here I am again.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: This campus, in the last 11 years, three different mass shootings.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: One of them wasn't on campus, but it affected this campus deeply.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And then obviously the Stroger one, and then Thursday.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And so I found myself, and I am sure you did, in the dark.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: When something traumatic like that happens, all the things that you took for granted, all the things that you once understood to be real, like they're gone.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: The safety that you felt when you just walked across going to the union, it's gone.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Not by your fault, but it's gone.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: I can imagine Mary in that same position.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: The one that who had transformed her life, the one she had devoted herself to, the one she had gone to, that person, that person, the Lord and the Savior.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear how many times she calls her, I call him Lord in this?
10:54
SPEAKER_00: The Lord and the Savior, her Lord and her Savior, where she's devoting her life, her energy, her time, all of this, that person, gone.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Gone.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: That's what happened Friday.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Then it gets worse.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and she said, They've taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they've put him.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it true that when things go poorly, when things are going badly in your life, sometimes there's this next little thing that just might set it off?
11:38
SPEAKER_00: I want to prep you this morning because you may have received some of this or not.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where everybody's been in the last three or four days.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: But there may be some moments like that in the next coming weeks, where like just one comment or one thing.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: I was telling friends when I was in Westcott at the time, and all I could rem all I can remember is those sirens.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: And for the next like couple days, the next couple days until this point, every time I heard a siren here on Jefferson Street, it was it was triggering for me.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: There was like this thing that was happening.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: So I was going into this thing.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Psycholog psychologists uh call this uh emotional snowballing, emotional cascading.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and sometimes negative emotions can build upon each other.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine Mary being in that place and then getting to the tomb and it's empty.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Now she's not thinking, oh, well, he must have been resurrected.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: What's she thinking?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it must have been robbed, or they've moved the body.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: The person I came to take care of, they've moved the body.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: And it gets worse.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: The other thing I think is fascinating about this is in verse 3 I want you to hear what happens.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because she goes back to the disciples who were her buds, you know, she's hanging with them, whatever, and they do what guys, can we be honest?
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Guys often do, which is like, don't worry, I got this.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Peter, Peter, Simon Peter, and the other disciple, who we we believe might be John, traditionally believed to be John, the guy who might have written this.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: He they then have their own little narrative here, and I want you to hear how funny and clueless they are.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Peter and the other disciple, they left to go to the tomb and they were running together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we get it.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And that was the first, it's such a dude thing.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like let me just one-up you in this, right?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: They and they ran, they ran to the tomb, bending down to take a look, he saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And following him, Simon Peter entered the tomb and saw the linen cloth lying there.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: So they've both seen the linen cloth lying there.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: He also saw the face cloth that had been on Jesus' head.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't wear the other clothes, but he was folded up in its own place.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Then the other disciple, the one who arrived at the tomb, also went first, also went inside.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: I guess they're trying to figure out the situation, but as a guy, I'm like thinking about those times that I've walked into a room and like forgotten completely why I was there.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: There's this kind of like, okay, well, I see that, I see that, but there's no real commentary from John about this.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: And if he was the one that was there, I'm like, what is he thinking?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: Then the other disciple, the one who arrived at the tomb first, have to remind you again, also went inside.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And he saw and believed, of course, he saw and believed.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: They didn't yet understand that the scriptures that Jesus must rise from the dead.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And then, having accomplished very little, they returned to Mary.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: They didn't yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead, and so they returned to the place where they were staying.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: They come back with no info.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: And the very next verse is Mary.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Mary stood near the tomb.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what?
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Crying.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And as she cried, she bent to look into the tomb.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Don't raise your hands unless you are brave.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Anybody a crier?
14:51
SPEAKER_00: My wife will tell you that I cried through our entire wedding.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: It made pictures great.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: I am a crier.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know that my favorite movie is what?
15:04
SPEAKER_00: James Cameron's Titanic from 1997.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: It is a beautiful story.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, that last scene, you know where like he could have gotten on the, you know, there was room on the door.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: I think Mythbusters tried to beat that, by the way.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: But I ball through that entire scene every time.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: So I can admit I'm a crier.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Many of you are criers too.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Let me encourage you in the coming weeks, cry a lot.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: If you find yourself just wanting to cry and you don't know why, do it.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Crying is healthy and emotional.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: It's something that we do as human beings to just kind of release the emotions.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: There's some sort of science happening there that I'm sure you know about that I don't.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: But crying is real.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a real thing that you are allowed to do in the coming days.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And so if you find yourself wanting to suppress that, simply don't, is my invitation to you.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Why?
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Mary cried.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm thinking hard.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Because her Lord had been taken multiple times, not just from life, but then from the tomb itself.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: So she found herself in that vulnerable and emotional state.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the things I've learned about vulnerability is that when you find yourself in an emotional state, you find yourself in the most vulnerable state, and I find it here in this story as well.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: That is when God meets us.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: When we're at the place where we can't do it ourselves, we can't make that next step.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: We can't do that next thing.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: That's when God meets us.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And God chooses to speak to her here as well.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: This is verse 12.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: She saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and one at the foot.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: And the angels asked her, Woman, why are you crying?
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And she replies, They've taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they've put him.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: She said the same thing, by the way, to Simon Peter and the other disciples.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as she said this, she turned around and she saw Jesus standing there, but she didn't know it was Jesus.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And he says the same thing that the angels said to her, Woman, why are you crying?
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Who are you looking for?
17:43
SPEAKER_00: And thinking that he was the gardener, which would have made sense, she replied, Sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: She's still in this narrative.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: She's still in this place of like he's been taken.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And please, I'm begging you, I'm begging you, if you're the one who took him, if you please, please, please tell me where he is.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Fix this for me.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: I'll go get him.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And then that place.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Everything, not just in Mary's life, but in the world history, is about to change.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: I think it's fascinating with one word.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't sit there with a lecture.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't sit there with, you know, all of this.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, you should have seen this in Isaiah.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't sit there with, well, have you heard about since the beginning of time where God was going to restore all of creation?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Have you heard about that?
18:51
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't sit there.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
18:53
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus, the supposed gardener, say to Mary in that moment?
18:57
SPEAKER_00: He just says one word.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: He says, Mary.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Her name.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Names are powerful, aren't they?
19:09
SPEAKER_00: You ever been in that situation where you don't remember the person's name that you're talking to, but you waited too long to figure it out?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: You did that thing where you just talk to them and talk to them and talk to them.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I really should have asked this six or seven, I do this all the time as a pastor.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Six or seven minutes ago, and I'm like, okay, how am I gonna find them on Insta?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: How am I gonna figure out who this person is without asking their name?
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Names are powerful.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: When somebody is saying your name, it's powerful.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I had a bunch of pastors call me this week for obvious reasons.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them, by the way, uh promised that they were their churches were gonna pray at 11 a.m.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: for this congregation and for this campus, and you know, my my heart was moved.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: But I can't tell you, one of the things I remember the most about talking to some of them is that they all said, Hey, Bryant, we we're praying for you.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Hey, we just want you to know that we are with you, Bryant.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: As a pastor, man, the power of a name.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: The power of being called by your name.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: It is no wonder then when Mary is sitting there in her deepest, darkest place, Jesus says one thing, he says her name, and she immediately knows who he is.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Raboni, teacher.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she could be saying, Lord, Savior.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Everything then changed.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Because that narrative of the darkness that had had such a stronghold over her for the past three days, it was gone.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: That narrative that, like, there's no hope.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm just hoping that they'll somehow tell me where his body is so I can go adorn it.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: That that narrative that no longer has the words.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Because God has risen, overcome it.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting in the human experience that it takes a couple days.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: This has been foretold in the in the prophets, by the way, for for a long time, but uh a lot of them didn't really pick up on it over the course of that time.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: But the it took a few days, three days in fact, for there to be this process of emotions.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Holy Saturday is an amazing time because it's just kind of this emptiness.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: It's a time for pastors to get a break for Sunday, but you know, it's this emptiness.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Because he died then, he's coming then, and we sit in the middle.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: You're going to tell the story of what happened this week for a long time to come.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: You may not even realize it.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: So you weren't on campus, and so you may say, Well, I wasn't on campus, but the truth is you've experienced a trauma in some way.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Parents who weren't here, you experienced a trauma for sure, not knowing if you had heard from your child yet or not.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: There is all of us have experienced this in some place, form, time, fashion.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: And we'll be telling that story.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Let me encourage you that that narrative is not the overarching one, that that narrative Is a piece of the story.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: It's a piece of who you are.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: But the narrative that evil won the day, it ain't there, my friends.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: The beauty is in like the vigils that have been happening all over campus.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: The beauty is in the people who come together to just be with each other.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: In the tears.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: The beauty is in the applause that I heard at the vigil on Langford Green the other day, where the president said a few things.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he was expecting an applause, and this applause just kind of naturally erupted out of there because we realized as FSU, we were one body.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: We realized as FSU, we weren't 700 different student organizations.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: We weren't a whole bunch of different academic things.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: We were one body and we were strong.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: That's the narrative that's coming out of this.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: I, my friends, I see resurrection in that.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Do you?
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I see resurrection in that.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: And if you find yourself in this place where I don't know what the next step is, I don't know how I'm gonna get out of this darkness.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: My invitation for you is to listen for the voice of the Lord, who's just saying your name to your face, so that you might hear of the good news in a way that nobody else is painting, but that you might hear from the risen Lord and Savior saying your name.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Mary.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Mary.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: There's so much in that.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Mary.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Everything changed.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: We have an opportunity as a people to be a witness to what's happened in our own lives and our own faith.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: A faith defined by life and resurrection.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: We have an opportunity to be a witness to life and not death.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: We have an opportunity to share that with a world that so desperately needs to hear it.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Couple things I think would be helpful for you to do.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: I think you could use each other's names.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds small, but I think you could use each other's names.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have name tags on now when we're gonna go eat lunch in a little bit.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Use each other's names.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: You could check up on each other a lot more often than you have been, reaching out to the people in your life.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: You could provide them the space that they need when they just need that good, hearty cry.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: And then you could walk alongside them with a spirit of positivity, with an uplifting heart to be the voice of resurrection in their life.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Man, the world so desperately needs that.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: So desperately needs that.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
26:09
SPEAKER_00: It's us as the hands and feet of God doing that.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have an opportunity this morning to come to a table.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: This table is uh something Jesus instituted on the Thursday before Easter.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: And so I couldn't take this opportunity on Easter Sunday to not come to it.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: We here at Wesley, we come to it every week.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: It's a table where God gave of himself for us and for the world.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: It's a table that doesn't belong to any one church, anyone preacher, any one body.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: It belongs only to the Lord.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: On the night in which Jesus was betrayed by his friend, he took the bread that they were eating.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: They were having a Passover meal, and he gave thanks to God for it.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And then he broke the bread.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Take and eat all of you.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I can imagine him sitting there at the table saying, Peter, Judas, John, take and eat all of this.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: This is my body broken for you.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: He did the same thing with the cup that they were drinking.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: He gave thanks to God for it.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: And then he said, Hey, drink of this, all of you.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: This is my blood of the new covenant, and it's poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: He says, as often as you drink it, just remember me.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray over this meal together.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, we ask that you pour out your Holy Spirit on these gifts of bread and the cup, that they may be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we might be for the world the body and blood of Christ redeemed by his blood.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Make us one with you, and one in unity and ministry to all the world, until you come in final victory, and we feast at your heavenly banquet, where we're restored and renewed, just as Easter has promised us.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: God help us to receive these elements as you meeting us where we need it right now, knowing that you are present in our lives.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Just as you are present in this meal.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your holy name.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Amen.