"Don, Bridget & The Egg" Under Surfside Pier July 17

In the center from the left is Mom, Jennifer, Daughter Bridget and Grand Mom Mary M.

Column One

The Miracles of CommunionFire
​You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Jennifer (Mom) and Bridget (Daughter) came with Mary M.  this morning from the Lancaster area of Pennsylvania.

As folks arrived and set up their beach chairs around our bodyboard table we had a chat with young Bridgette. Her favorite subject is writing. She helped her Mom set up and organize the VBS program last week at home and they were here on vacation.

Our new format is to share the Apostle's Creed, some words of encouragement about Communion and then to share the communion.table. Our floors are of sand, the roof is the Surfside Pier and our view is the endless ocean of God's love and waves of grace pounding our hearts about every 5 seconds.

Now when I woke up this morning the Lord said, "Suffer the children to come to Me". This invitation we see in Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14 and Luke 18:16. In Communion we understand that means to not hinder children from faith or the Lord's table. Then the Lord said to take a certain book, "Heaven Changes Everything" as a gift for a visitor today when I was prepping to go to the beach. The third thing He indicated to me was that He wanted me to share from Luke 11 after Communion.   

We arrived just before Mary, Mary, Jennifer and Pennsylvania 3rd grader, Bridget. I immediately knew the book was for her but asked first if she like reading? She said yes and I gave her the book! 

After Sharon, cousin Don, George arrived we got started. We shared the Apostle's Creed as the call to worship and then for the guests we did the CommunionFire 'Consider the Lilies' exercise. The word we used today was "Jesus". Basically everyone closes their eyes and I say a word, sometimes it is 'flower' sometimes 'treasure' but this morning it was "Jesus".

We each shared what we "saw or thought about" when we heard His name. Having done this I went on to share.

Communion is a bit like that exercise. I asked Bridgette, "What is your favorite food?" She smiled and drooled out loud, "Pizza!" Then I said what is your least favorite food and she snarled a perfect snarl and said, "Sauerkraut" as though the word were as bad as the taste! We all enjoyed her sharing. 

I asked, "Did you see Bridgette remember the taste and then shared her reaction? One was a big happy drooling grin and the other was a sour snarl."

Food not only empowers us physically but also awakens our thinking, imaginations and emotions. (Soul = mind, will and emotions + Body (physical bones, skin and organs) We need food to survive. 

In the ongoing gifts of grace, life and love Communion brings us Jesus makes it a heavenly food that feeds our spirit by his Spirit inside us physically. At the same time it also brings us into His presence where we are, as we are for who we are. We encounter His glory and when we do we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. 

The Bread of Heaven He calls His Flesh
That He Gives for the Life of Each One of Us

"That's how it is for us in Communion. When we ask the Lord to bless the bread this morning, He does!

When He does, His blessing lets us taste His presence. When we do (though our physical eyes are closed), the simple eating of the bread opens the eyes of our spirit. We may see and recognize Him, His presence and/or what He has prepared in the bread for us to experience. The bread this morning was gluten free prepared by Mary M. (Mary is the designated Sunday morning bread bringer.) but after Jesus blessed it and we give thanks, it becomes something else. It became a supernatural food that gave us new life as we ate. 

Jesus calls it "His flesh given for the life of the world!" He says, "If you eat it you are in His presence and He is inside you. "Christ in you the hope of glory!" is how the Apostles describe this day to day miracle of Communion.

I said, 'Its not the taste, it's the blessing that Jesus puts within the bread. So, when we eat it, it opens up (like a present) and we find out what He has prepared personally for each one of us.

The Wine of Heaven He Calls His Blood
That He continually Pours Out that We Might Know the Extent of His Love & Mercy

It is the same with the wine. We ask the Lord to bless the cup of wine and when we do He empowers it to become a river of His love poured into us like a transfusion of His blood into our blood. It is a river of life flowing into our physical bodies as we drink. Jesus calls the wine His blood in John 6. When we taste, we see and/or hear and/or experience something that He has planned for each one of us. His voice is personal, intimate and one-on-one. it feels almost like a whisper sometimes or like an embrace but whatever the message the Holy Spirit delivers it to us in the way that Jesus has personally prescribed for each one of us.

After sharing this we talked briefly about the scripture from: 

1 Peter 3:3-4 "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

Through  these He has given us His  precious and magnificent promises, 
so that  through them you may become partakers of the divine  nature, 

now that you have escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." 

Divine Flesh that tastes like bread and Divine Blood that tastes like wine feeds and fills us with the food of eternal life and promises. When we partake, believing, we receive all that the Lord has prepared for us in that brief but eternal meal.

​Each person was asked to define "divine" and three words surfaced "God, Heavenly and Wonderful"

I said, "After Communion, CommunionFire and sharing we would be taking a look at Luke 11." 

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Column Two
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When it was time for Communion
​
​We presented Mary's bread to the Lord, asked, "Lord, we ask you to bless this bread to be your Body, we do this to remember You". We shared as each person said, 'The Body of Christ broken for you". Then we all ate at the same time.

Pausing for a minute, we each waited before the Lord, with physical eyes closed.

For a moment we allowed the Holy Spirit to reveal what Jesus wanted share with each one of us as we tasted of His presence. 

Next we prayed, "Lord bless this wine to be Your Blood. We do this to remember you." Then each person said, as we shared, "The blood of Christ shed for you." With an "Alleluia!" we drank our sip of the river of His life.

One by one we each shared what the Lord had shared with us during the CommunionFire (Communion with Jesus in His glory by His Spirit and by His Spirit His glory within us)

Bob: (what His Bread fed me) "The footprints in the sand are like others you see who have gone before you in sharing the Communion since I walked on the earth." (What His Wine poured into me) The message was "This morning you are surrounded on the beach with a heavenly cloud of witnesses." Hebrews 12:1

George: I remembered the miracle Jesus did with the loaves and fishes because the crowds were hungry. Then I could see Jesus preaching to the multitudes from the boat.John 6:5-13; Mark 3:8-9

Sharon: "I saw a flashlight buried in the sand but it pointed up and filled the darkness with light like a broad " V ". Then I saw chaos in the darkness round the light. And then I saw that the chaos was in the world but not in the light of Jesus shining from the sand." (Psalm 23 "He prepares a table for us in the presence "chaos" of our enemies; also John 1:1-5) Then the Lord said, "I love to tell you stuff that makes you think!" 

Mary C.: "I have to share this. I had that chaos all week that Sharon spoke of. But in the Communion this morning as I listened to the waves, it was like being washed in the peace of Jesus."

Mary M. shared that with His bread of life Jesus showed me that we were surrounded by His perfect light right on the beach where we are. Then His Precious Blood the same message, "You are surrounded by the light of Christ.".James 1:17; 1 John 1:5

Camille: "Oh now I have to share! I saw a rainbow surrounding us and moving around us as I had The Holy Communion.' Jesus was surrounding us with Promise!" Revelation 4:1-4; Psalm 36:8-10

Don: I can't explain this and I might need help but when I had the bread I saw an egg floating right in front of me..

(This is what happened next)

Bridget who was a little restless but very patient suddenly burst out, "Did you hear that Mom, He said egg!" Jennifer confirmed and started to say that the previous week Bridget was very helpful with the VBS but on top of all that she did some of the object lessons! One was about an egg...

Bridget burst in with excitement to explain that the egg in the shell that sat in the top of a cardboard tube which was balanced on top of a plate which sat on top of a glass of water...

It was "at rest" and if you remove the plate the egg falls into the glass of water and does not break!"

Don reflected on the message of being at rest (in fact he told me that if I looked over at him and he looked like he was asleep, he probably was!) but both he and Bridget and Jennifer were all involved in a very animated discussion about the egg and the object lesson!

I said, "well thank you so much Ms. Bridget! You brought us a terrific message this morning because of Jesus showing an egg floating in the air. (She was all grins and so were the rest of us!)

Because I was going to share a message from Luke 11 this morning that said, 

1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: “ ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 Forgive us our sins,for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’ ” 

5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 

12 Or if he asks for an EGG, will give him a scorpion? 

13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Remember 1 Peter 3? 

Through these He has given us His  precious and magnificent promises, 
so that  through them you may become partakers of the divine  nature. 

What does this say to you? Newton's First Law of Motion... Hmmmm any applications you can think of? 

Remember the Lord said to Sharon - I like to show/tell you things that make you think!