One of the reasons we meet together as a church every Sunday, no matter what; and one of the beauties of taking the Lord’s supper together every Sunday, no matter what, is this:

Today, my morning so far has involved one child being mildly fussy, and the other having a series of protracted meltdowns which including urinating on me. It includes the dreadful strains of children’s entertainment in the background as I write these very words: the kind of thing that seems calculated to annoy me.

But this is the Lord’s day. Not mine.

We will gather in a few hours to proclaim the one who lived in this same world, in all its brokenness. We will sing to remind each other of the way Jesus fulfilled and finished the hope of Israel, of how he died, of how he lives. We will hear the word of our Lord preached, words that are true and lasting. We will take the Lord’s supper together as a lasting reminder of what he did, as a sign of his lasting presence with us today, and as a promise of the future wedding feast that we will partake of together. We will share the week’s joys and sorrows with each other. It will be imperfect, messy, possibly out of tune and with more than a few crumbs on the floor. But it will be good.

We gather regardless of how we feel, or of what our circumstances are. We need each other, and we need the reminder that the things we experience day-in and day-out are not final or ultimate. We gather as a reminder that the little tastes we find of the Kingdom in the gathering are tastes of a future that really is coming.