At the invitation of Fr. Mark, the Incumbent of the the Canterbury City Centre Parishes and Jamie, their Student Worker, Liam, Vickie, Dave and myself drove up on Saturday morning to run a workshop on Creative Liturgy, a Blesséd Mass for Candlemas and for me to preach on the Sunday Morning.

The text of the paper will be found later in the year in my book:

You might want to contact SCM-Canterbury and place a pre-order with them. This is the first explicit and what I hope will not be too tedious plugs for it. It is my first published book completely written by me – before this I have only had chapters (ie Ancient-Future…) or papers published in peer-reviewed journals in Nursing (The Nursing Contribution to the Do-Not-Resuscitate Debate, Nurse-Patient Interaction in High Dependency Critical Care Areas: A Grounded Theory Study) or a column in the Nursing Times: this is a first and naturally I am excited. Indulge me a bit…

Later on Saturday, we gathered for a Blesséd for Candlemas. The liturgy was as follows:

Blesséd – Light: Candlemas 2009

Gathering

Video: Busy Gathering

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Introduction

Video: Liturgical Greeting v. Short

[youtube=AndLNmeBlrI

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Brothers and Sisters, we are the Church!

Bold and underlined words are displayed on screen

We come to praise the God who loves us so much that he sends his Son, Jesus, to bring us life and breathe the fire of the Holy Spirit into our hearts.

It is now forty days since Christmas and tonight we remember a special moment in Jesus life, when his parents took him to the Temple to dedicate him to God. There they encountered two old and wise people, Simeon and Anna who recognised Jesus as God’s son and began to tell the world about him.

Here in God’s house we too come to encounter Jesus as he becomes present with us in bread and wine. And we ask God’s Spirit to give us courage and faith that we too can tell the world of the amazing love that Jesus brings.

For with God all things are possible, nothing is impossible, do not be afraid!

Penitential Rite

https://www.vimeo.com/8699746

When three candles on the altar are lit the Priest says:

Jesus is the light of the world. That light is in each of us for Jesus is always with us.

When we do things that are wrong, when we hurt or damage our friends or families, our environment, or ourselves the light of Jesus becomes dim in us. Let us remember those times, sort our lives out and know that God forgives us.

During each petition at the words “we bring darkness” one of the three candles is extinguished and the lights in church grow dimmer.

When we do wrong to our family and loved ones, we bring darkness into our lives Father, forgive.

When we do wrong to our world, we bring darkness into our lives Father, forgive

When we do wrong to ourselves, we bring darkness into our lives Father, forgive

During the prayer for forgiveness, the Priest pauses as the candles are relit

May the risen Christ heal and restore us light candle

save us from all evil light candle

and give us his light always light candle

Amen.

Collect

Let us pray

Lord Jesus Christ,

light of the nations and glory of Israel;

make your home among us,

and present us pure and holy

to your heavenly Father,

your God and our God.

Amen.

Liturgy of the Word

The Reading is from Malachi

God says

The Messenger will come

The one you look for will appear in his temple

The Messenger will come

He will bring good news to delight in

The Messenger will come

But who can endure the day of his coming,

The Messenger will come

and who can stand when he appears?

The Messenger will come

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap;

The Messenger will come

he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,

The Messenger will come

and he will purify the descendants of Levi,

The Messenger will come

until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

The Messenger will come

then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD

The Messenger will come

God will do this.

Gospel: Presentation in the Temple Luke 2:22-32

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As the meditation is played, the altar is circled and censed. At the end, the priest faces the congregation and repeats the Nunc Dimmitis:

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:
your word has been fulfilled.

My own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people;

A light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever, world without end. Amen

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Praise to you, O Christ

Strip Intercessions

https://www.vimeo.com/5663975

Equipment: Strips of Paper, Pens, Glue Dots

The people write their intercessions on the strips of paper

If you want to write down your prayers, what would it look like?

A shopping list?

Would it be more like a doodle?

Would your prayers form a little sketch?

A spider diagram?

A single word?

Logical in structure? Random or chaotic?

Does it matter?

Before you write anything down, pause and reflect.

What is your main concern?

What do you need to bring before God?

For yourself.

For others.

For the Church.

For the world.

For the sick, the ailing, the addicted, the troublesome

For the dead and the mourning..

We do not pray alone.

We join these prayers with all the others written tonight.

Weaved together. Linked. Joined.

Joined with the angels, the saints, the prophets, the patriarchs.

Joined with the prayers of our Blesséd Lady…

Hail Mary,Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.

How did they turn out?

No need to sign your prayers

God knows.

He knows your needs,

Your desires

Your concerns…

…and he listens.

He responds.

Whether you prayed a picture, a list, a diagram, a single word…

God responds.

Maybe Yes

Maybe No

Maybe Not Yet

Not always the answer to your prayers that you want.

…but he answers.

Always.

Amen

The Liturgy of the Sacrament

Peace

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Christ is our peace.

He has reconciled us to God

in one body by the cross.

We meet in his name and share his peace.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

And also with you.

Let us offer one another a sign of peace

The Peace is shared

The Offertory

As the offertory is played, bread and wine move haphazardly from the rear to the altar, passing through most members of the congregation

Video: Blesséd be your name (iWorship)

The priest, altar and people are covered in a large sheet of voile material. During the preface, the voile is gently raised until by the sanctus it is removed.

The Eucharistic Prayer

Video: Joined by Angels Eucharistic Prayer

https://www.vimeo.com/8697432

The Lord be with you

and also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give thanks and praise.

1)Father we begin buried, hemmed in, subjucated and hidden.

Our faith covered by our sin, hidden by our insecurity.

2)Yet you have revealed your love for us, uncovering yourself through
the enfleshment of your Son and continue to work through the power of your holy spirit.

3)Reveal yourself to us in bread and wine,

Make us complete by the obedience of your Son to death,

even death on a cross

4)Take us and fashion us

Form us in love into the likeness of Christ

And enable us to be freed to see that likeness in others.

5)So we enter into the mysteries of heaven echoing the song of the
angels, saints, prophets and patriarchs…

Sanctus

We are joined by angels,

Our purpose the same:

To worship the one and only God,

A little piece of heaven in this place

And we cry together: Holy, holy

For there is no other like You, Lord.

We declare together: You are awesome,

You are to be feared, honoured and revered,

For You are the Lord.

We are joined by angels,

With one voice we sing,

As we lift our hands to honour You,

In worship, the angels extend their wings.

And we cry together: Holy, holy

For there is no other like You, Lord.

We declare together: You are awesome,

You are to be feared, honoured and revered,

For You are the Lord.

The music continues softly as the Priest continues with the prayer

6) Father of all, we give you thanks

for every gift that comes from heaven

7)Send your Spirit now
upon +these gifts

that we may feed on Christ

with opened eyes and hearts on fire.

8)To the darkness Jesus came as your light.
With signs of faith and words of hope
he touched untouchables with love and washed the guilty clean.

9)The crowds came out to see your Son,

yet at the end they turned on him.
On the night he was betrayed
he came to table with his friends

to celebrate the freedom of your people.

10)Jesus blessed you, Father, for the food;
he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and said:
This is my body, given for you all.
Jesus then gave thanks for the wine;
he took the cup, gave it and said:
This is my blood, shed for you and for all

for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in remembrance of me.

11)Therefore, Father, with this bread and this cup

we celebrate the cross
on which he died to set us free.
Defying death he rose again
and is alive with you to plead for us and all the world.

12)May we and all who share this food

offer ourselves to live for you
and be welcomed at your feast in heaven

where all creation worships you,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit:

The music resolves again and we sing

And we cry together: Holy, holy

For there is no other like You, Lord.

We declare together: You are awesome,

You are to be feared, honoured and revered,

For You are the Lord.

The Lord’s Prayer

Video: Lord’s Prayer Short Modern

=_tyT7IvcxGM

We break this bread to share in the body of Christ

Though we are many we are one body,

because we all share in one bread.

Agnus Dei

Video: Rufus Wainwright: Agnus Dei

=JVbdzqOrOjg

This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

Blessed are those who are called to his supper.

Lord I am not worthy to receive you,

but only say the word and I shall be healed.

Communion

Video: Prayer from the Heart

=NPX9clcLLAw

Post Communion Prayer

Let us pray

Lord,

you feed us with the gift of your Son,

Jesus Christ the light of all nations.

May we, like Simeon and Anna,

have faith and courage to share his light with others,

for he is Lord for ever and ever.

Amen

Blessing of Candles

Candles with the Blesséd logo are brought forward

Let us bless these candles

God our Father,

you give us Jesus as the light of the world,

a light to brighten all the nations

a light to shine into the darkest parts of our lives.

Bless + these candles,

that they may be a sign of our prayers for our broken world

and remind us that all things will be brought into your light

when your Son our Saviour comes again in glory.

Amen.

Candles are distributed

Blessing and Dismissal

Video: Dismissal

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

May Christ our light fill you with joy,

send you into the world

so all people may be ablaze with his glory.

And the blessing of God Almighty

+the Father, +the Son, +and the Holy Spirit

be upon you and remain with you always.

Amen.

Go in the light and peace of Christ

Thanks be to God.

Video: EndMusic Polyphonic

END

Preached at St Mildred’s, Canterbury
Text: Luke 2:22-40

In the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

My dear friends in Christ, it gives  me great pleasure to be with you this morning, and indeed to be with you this entire weekend. I would like to thank you all for your kindness and hospitality that you have extended to Liam, Dave, Vickie and myself as we joined you yesterday to share some of the work of Blessed, our alternative worship community, and share its vision for a deeply sacramental, radical call to mission. I would like to thank Fr. Mark and Jamie, your excellent youthworker, for their invitation.

In many ways, what was explored last night in the Blessed Mass for Candlemas is also played out in today’s theme: revelation, mystery and above all the word made flesh, made real, made among us in the incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ. What was once hidden, is now plain, for all the world to see. What our world once believed or took for granted has been transformed, challenged, subverted: for this is the very essence of what Blessed seeks to do…

I know that the great playwright George Bernard Shaw took great delight in revealing the error of so many of our assumptions and certainties. One story – so good that it strikes me as apocryphal – is that while giving a lecture Shaw mentioned in an aside that the English language had only two words which begin with the sound ‘sh,’ but are spelled with only a single ‘s’ and not the ‘h.’ Can you think of them?

Someone in his audience (clearly delighting in the opportunity to correct a man of such esteem) sent him a letter declaring that there were not two such words, but only one such word – ‘sugar.’ Shaw dashed out a response to his critic on the back of a postcard with the single question, “Madame, are you sure?”

Human beings have a great attraction to certainty. We long for order, simplicity, clarity. Certainty helps us to organize the world neatly, to make our experience more easily understood, and to give us a sense of control. Certainty makes us feel secure.

So we like sharp lines between good and evil, right and wrong, holy and profane, true and false. And there are some things about which we can be certain, starting with: God loves us. And if we start with that, live trusting in that, basing our lives upon it, our hunger for other certainties becomes far less intense. The most important principle for life is to trust in God’s love for us.

But we’re not always so good about it. Instead of trusting in God’s love for us, we trust in things that are less certain. We shape our identity not on the fact that we are most beloved children of God, but on how we are different than other people – things like wealth, race, religion, education, ancestry, abilities, social status, and so on. We often identify with things that make us feel superior to other people. This divides people. As S. Paul told us in his letter to the supremem dysfunctional people of Corinth: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (1 Cor 8:1)

Love unites people, but we are prone to divide life into us versus them. Our certainties often deepen this divide of us and them. It’s not just divisions like City vs United, Labour and Tory, but divisions with even fiercer emotions and certainties: Hindus and Muslims in Pakistan and India; Christians and government authorities in China and North Korea; Christians and Muslims; Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Christians, of course, divide up themselves too: Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic. We have those who tend to find certainty in Biblical inerrancy and others in Papal infallibility. And we have countless further distinctions: Anglicans, Romans, Baptists, evangelicals, charismatics, inclusives, traditionalists. And so on, and so on… what has happened to the body of Christ? For goodness sake!

Our distinctions are often very important to us, but are they important to God? I am sure our distinctions are far more important to us than they are to God, and that should make us question how much we value them.

S. Paul tells us that God desires all of humanity to be saved. (1 Tim 2:4) God does not limit or restrict his grace and favour to any group of Christians or to any group of people. He’s there for all. The cross was not just for you, as an individual, but for all humanity. The question is not so much whether God will reject us, but more whether we reject God.

We reject things all of the time based upon unfounded assumptions and certainties. We say, “This is too catholic.” “This is too evangelical.” “This is too silly.” “This is beneath my dignity and attention.” “This is too different.” “This makes me uncomfortable.”

Sometimes in these snap judgments, prejudicial impulses, we cut ourselves off from God. Lots of certainty about everything usually makes us very small people. We have to be open to the possibility that we can be wrong about things. We have to be open to risk and to surprise. I’m amazed, and saddened, when I look back at my life and see all the things I’ve rejected initially – including Christianity, but also countless more minor things. God is gracious, and we can grow, and later we get another chance, or twelve other chances, or a hundred, and we open up, and learn.

Blessed is about taking the mysteries of God, in their wonderful, awesome, complex, troubling, challenging and upsetting glory and exploring them in new and creative ways: a creative response to a creative God. Sometimes it fails, sometimes it upsets, sometimes it irritates (often all three, especially if you are a Bishop) and yet on occasion, a glimpse of God may be spotted, an encounter made, a new insight gained, and when that happens, as I pray may have happened last night; Blessed will have completed its task, for one person at least. So, Blessed may have made you feel uncomfortable, but do not reject it simply because it challenges…

We assume that God has rejected Judaism and the Temple. That is not so. The Temple, its priests, rejected God in Jesus, but God did not reject the Temple. To the contrary, as today’s gospel makes clear, God used the Temple to nurture and to raise up his Son.

More than any of the evangelists, S. Luke shows the deep connection between Jesus and the Temple. Luke’s gospel begins and ends with scenes of praying and worshiping in the Temple, and repeatedly Jesus is in the Temple teaching, healing, cleansing, worshiping.

Today we focus on the Holy Family observing two required cultic practices. Firstly, Our Blessed Lady Mary is ‘purified’ on the fortieth day after the birth of her son. As required by the purification rite, she offered two pigeons. If the Holy Family had not been a hardship case, they would have offered a pigeon and a lamb. But they are poor. Again and again, Luke emphasizes that Jesus identifies with the poor and lowly – the overlooked, with those regarded as inferior.

Secondly, the firstborn son is presented to God, dedicated to God. Normally this rite included redeeming, buying back the son from God for five shekels. Notably, Luke does not mention any exchange whereby Jesus is bought back. The implication is that Jesus wholly belongs to God.

While the Holy Family is celebrating these rites, Simeon and Anna come and bear witness to the identity of Jesus. Simeon and Anna represent what’s best about Israel. They are devout, prayerful, obedient. They are led by the Holy Spirit: They live in faithfulness, gratitude, patience, and hope. They are plain, ordinary people, not the great and the good, important clergymen or political leaders, but they are open to God acting in new ways, and they recognize in Jesus God’s Messiah.

Simeon and Anna were regulars at the Temple, routinely joining in the prayer and worship. If prayer and worship are authentic, then we grow; we see and experience God in new wa
ys. He becomes a bigger part of our lives. Authentic worship is a life-changing experience. It is an encounter with God, not merely confirming who we are, but expanding our sympathies, broadening our vision, strengthening our character, deepening our trust of God, giving us hope.

Simeon encounters God in worship, and he is changed. He can now die in peace. He’s liberated. He feels the completion, the wholeness of God. That’s what worship can be for everyone. Whether that is Choral Evensong or Blessed does not matter, as long as God is worshipped with our whole hearts, engaged with, and encountered.

But that’s not the perception beyond these walls is it? I am constantly trying to overcome the feeling of many on the edge of faith that worship, church, the whole Jesus thing is for people who already have their lives sorted: who already have faith and certainty: I think the glossy images of American Evangelical Churches and the Alpha Course leaflets are partly to blame for that.

I recall a homeless, sick, penniless prostitute came to get food for her toddler. In trying to help her, I asked if she’d ever thought about the support a Church could offer. “Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I am already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

What irony! It was exactly women like this whom Jesus sought. It was exactly people like this poor woman who came to Jesus. “The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge.” We fail as the living body of Christ, my dear friends, when the Church makes people feel excluded, unworthy even to be in Church, when the Church makes moral outcasts feel like one of ‘them’ and not one of ‘us.’

Imagine again Simeon meeting the baby Jesus in the grand, magnificent Temple. Simeon took Jesus in his hands and held up his Lord. God creates all things and powers the universe, and God the all-powerful, the all-knowing, God the unimaginable, untouchable, unseen had become a helpless, vulnerable baby.

Simeon and Anna saw that God had forever changed his relationship with us. It’s no longer God and us. Now, he’s become one of us. That changes the way not only we see and experience God, but the way we see and experience ourselves and other people.

We see God in ourselves. We see God in other people. We see that we’re all brothers and sisters, children of God.

We are loved. That love is part of the revelation that this mystery of Candlemas offers us. Share that love, and ensure that your love unites rather than separates.

Amen

Acknowledgements to Fr. Davenport for the core of this homily.
http://www.ascensionandsaintagnes.org/html/sermons/LY2006/06-02-05-candlemas.htm

What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being,
to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted,
to lighen the sorrow of the sorrowful,
and to remove the wrongs of the injured.

The Qu’ran: SM 249

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God

Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5

…and so, Go, as he says and do likewise…

Blesséd is on tour this weekend, and as a part of the workshop you can learn how to create a Movie for worship on either your PC or Mac using these simple and free tools. If you want to take part in this part of the training, feel free to bring along your laptop (Mac or PC) and you can either download it from a CD/Stick, or you might like to download it in advance.

The resources for this movie can be downloaded from here:

http://www.agnusdei.org.uk/index.php?id=1&rootpage=ZmlsZWFkbWluL3ZpZGVvL0NhbnRlcmJ1cnkgV29ya3Nob3A=

[audio http://www.frsimon.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/angelus.mp3

The zip folder contains everything you need as resources for this walkthrough.

I have created these walkthroughs to remind you at a later stage, or if you can’t make the day.

a) Windows Live Movie Maker

https://www.vimeo.com/9023319

b) Mac iMovie

https://www.vimeo.com/9021138

iMovie or Movie maker is a start, but not a really useful video editing suite. These videos were captured from the screen using CamStudio an excellent Freeware screen capture program and edited in Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 for the PC version, and screen shots captured from my Mac Mini, stitched together in Pages and exported as a Quicktime Movie for the Mac version.

I hope this is useful, and as it proves – it’s not that difficult! Get out there and make some worship!

Our Church does not promote this same inclusiveness to reflect society, or to be led by it, but to reflect the love of God, and which happens to coincide with what people are finally thinking as well.

I have been dismayed by the vote last night in the House of Lords to place special exemption on Churches, so that prejudice and intolerance may be enshrined in our way of working. It makes me ashamed to be a member of the Church of England. It also makes me angry that I get tarred by the same brush, and the assumption out there in the mission field is that the entire church is a bunch of self-seeking homophobes. Thanks, you have made my job today just that little bit harder.

But let me say this clearly: THIS IS NOT WHAT S.THOMAS THE APOSTLE, ELSON STANDS FOR

Our position is not a maverick, renegade or subversive position, we are not rebels but Scripturally-based, Inclusive, Sacramental and Tolerant.

Just because certain sections of the Church read their bible a little less critically than we do, because they have not spotted the over arching themes of God’s love for us amid the situational laws and ethics for a different time and a different place, just because they have lost the love of Christ in translation from Hebrew and Greek, does not mean that the God-breathed inspiration of God behind the words (written down by humans) and the Divine Word itself does not mean that the Church has the moral or legal right to hide in the corner and claim that it’s okay to be a bit prejudiced just because you are a Christian (Muslim, or a Jew, or a Wiccan…).

A week or so ago, I noted that the Church has moved from the instigator of Social Justice to its enemy. I said:

In the 19th Century the Evangelicals got slavery abolished because they believed White and Black were equal; later the Anglocatholics opened schools to educate the poor because they valued the poor: both were motivated by the knowledge that humankind was made in the image of God: radical ideas which subverted the political and social norm.

Two hundred years later, the Churches are no longer at the radical edge of social reform but are agents of retrenchent: seeking exlusions from legistlation because of bad translations of scripture and deeply entrenched sexism, racism or homophobia. How did this happen?

The Dean suggested today that the National Curriculum is geared towards making consumers, and this should be challenged. If we are to be once again working to build the kingdom of God then we need to re- embrace the radical.

Today the Social Attitudes Survey suggests that the UK has over the last 25 years become much more liberal in its attitudes towards homosexuality and different family arrangements and all sorts of other things. Our Church does not promote this same inclusiveness to reflect society, or to be led by it, but to reflect the love of God, and which happens to coincide with what people are finally thinking as well.

So, our message to the Bishops of Intransigence, to the homophobes which seemingly populate the Church (but who don’t, it would seem, live anywhere near me), to the writers of headlines, leave us out of it.

Socialist, Smoshialist – you healthcare costs too much, and it turns out it is rubbish as well. You really ought to do something to control costs and actually be able to treat everyone.

From Mental Floss:

With today’s paranoia of terrorists, child molesters and more, kids are missing more and more opportunities to go out, have fun and well…be kids.  To fight this, a new parenting mentality has started to arise, arguing that kids should go outside to play rough, even if it means getting a few scrapes and bruises along the way. The free-range parenting movement has been getting a lot of steam lately and the idea has been a hot topic of debate. A recent book called Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) has taken the concept one step further and actually recommends fifty different potentially dangerous activities that can help children learn about science, athletics and more.

The problem is that without exposure to mildly dangerous situations children never learn to assess risk, avoid harm and once they reach the magical age of 18 they can’t be expected to respond to the world like adults. Mind you, adults can’t be treated like adults anymore, for the compensation culture and the readiness to sue has made no-one responsible for their own behaviour anymore. It is always someone’s fault, and never your own.

I used to joke (especially as most friends had their families 7-10 years after Lou and I) that with Child 1 you are cautious, by Child 2 you are relaxed and by Child 3 you are positively negligent, but behind this is a realisation that children need to learn responsibility, and a response to the real world, whether that is walking or cycling home from school or being home alone for 10 minutes.

HT to Natalie Loveless for this brilliant bit of Adrian Plass:

Father God I wonder,

why they bother with a preacher,

when they’ve got a worship leader,

who’s as wonderful as me.

Now they won’t be needing all the Holy Spirit leading,

they have asked for twenty minutes

but my kind of talent knows no limits.

I will sing forever x3

for evermore.

I will sing my praises x3

for evermore!

Not only does this video demonstrate excellent espresso technique, but it also demonstrates some majorly clever style and editing features.

• The titles are sumptuous, looking like it is shot through a glass pane, so the title becomes a part of the shop setup
• The Black & White looks cool except for the actual espresso coming from the machine and in the cup which is brown. Also the logo on the cup. It’s the same as in the girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List and draws the eye. Beautiful.

https://www.vimeo.com/8826344

Suggested by CJM’s Mike Stanley, this combines music by Matt Maher and Matt Redman (now, there’s a collaboration!) with images from the 2000 TV Version of “Jesus Christ Superstar”

Lyrics:

Oh, how could it be
That my God would welcome me into this mystery
Say take this bread, take this wine
Now the simple made divine for any to receive

By Your mercy, we come to Your table
By Your grace, You are making us faithful

Lord, we remember You
And remembrance leads us to worship
And as we worship You
Our worship leads to communion
We respond to Your invitation, we remember You

See His body, His blood
Know that He has overcome every trial we will face
None too lost to be saved
None too broken or ashamed, all are welcome in this place

By Your mercy, we come to Your table
By Your grace, You are making us faithful

Lord, we remember You
And remembrance leads us to worship
And as we worship You
Our worship leads to communion
We respond to Your invitation, we remember You

Dying You destroyed our death
Rising You restored our life
Lord Jesus, come in glory

Lord Jesus, come in glory
Lord Jesus, come in glory
Lord Jesus, come in glory

Lord, we remember You
And remembrance leads us to worship
And as we worship You
Our worship leads to communion
We respond to Your invitation
We respond to Your invitation, we remember You