But the words in the stories help us to remember whose we are and from whence comes our present help. Our God is indeed the God who acts in history. But history is not a distant lake of biblical memories to which we go with buckets in our hands. History is a river of living water that carries us from a sacred source to a sea of freedom whose full expanse we do not yet comprehend.

Life is not easy. It never has been. There are rapids on the river and rocks that threaten our boats. Faith does not remove all challenge from those who profess it. We know each other well enough in this community to know that difficult things happen to good people. But faith gives us a context in which it is reasonable to draw strength and hope even in the face of that which appears to be tragic. There is always some power or principality around us or within us that wants to call us slaves rather than let us recognize ourselves as the children of God. We are not bystanders but participants in this existential drama. We resist, or we succumb, but we choose whose name to bear.

This is why we describe the nature of the cosmos, the reality of good and evil and the necessity of choosing between them every time we have baptisms. This is why we recount the story of the Exodus and remember the institution of the Eucharist. Both events are crescendos sounding as the powers of this world crash against God's resolute intention to save us. Broken bread held in hands ready to flee and blood splashed on doorways and the Cross are signs to us of the saving power of God if we remember the story, and trust.

Only God is worth worshipping. Only God truly offers life. Only God can save us, but we need constant reminding because the lure of other roads is so pervasive and seductive.

Sometimes we are drawn by desire. Sometimes we are driven by fear. But we are ultimately defined by our relationship with the divine. God calls us to look up from the tumult around us so that we might see a larger context in the light of His Kingdom.

Jesus took his place at the table in an upper room. He broke the bread and poured the wine. Outside all of Jerusalem was filled with pilgrims who had come for the Passover. Thousands of voices murmured their remembrance of God's commands to Moses and Aaron. They spilled the blood of lambs and baked unleavened bread.

The smoke and the sounds of the city moved like the shadow of angels above all their heads. Life and death hovered in the air. Jesus held all of this in his heart as he broke it open along with the loaf of bread. "Do this in remembrance of me," he said. And the Lamb of God, the bread of life, the blood poured out us for us mingled the story of Moses and Aaron with His own life and impending death to proclaim for us salvation and the power of God.

In Egypt, freedom finally came but first there were plagues and a sea of fear to cross. There was only faith, not the certainty of escape, until the waters parted. There was only the hope of safety until those waters closed on the army that pursued them. Then the fear of sudden death was replaced by years of wandering and wondering in the wilderness.

In danger and in safety it still all came down to choosing whether or not to trust. It still came down to seeing the signs and understanding that it was the power and presence of God showing forth in the pillar of cloud by day, the fire by night and the streams that burst forth from the rocks in the desert.

Those who sat with Jesus in the Upper Room were bordered by fear as surely as if the Red Sea sat outside their door. True the army that had pursued Moses would not be coming after them but Roman soldiers filled the city and the temple authorities meant to seize Jesus and anyone else who seemed to threaten their position and their will.

The Upper Room was in a different county and century than Pharaoh but it had its own succession of plagues. Fear, betrayal, division, doubt, envy, and avarice rained down like frogs and locusts distracting the disciples who feared that a river of blood would be next.

Looking back we can only see the argument over who would be greatest as a bitter irony. Who would be greatest- the one who betrayed Jesus? The one who denied Him not once but three times? The ones who would fall asleep in the garden when Jesus needed them most? Or perhaps the ones who ran away and hid while the Romans did their worst and ended their master's life?

At our best we are nowhere near as devoted as the disciples. And look at their performance on that night- it only got worse the next day- so what hope do we have?

But the fallen nature of the disciples is simply a given, as is our own. It is our inability to save ourselves that makes a Savior necessary. So let us raise our gaze from our weakness, and that of the disciples, and fix our eyes, instead, with hope and gratitude upon our Savior.

Jesus knew the disciples through and through, and yet He loved them. Jesus knows our fears and our temptations, and He loves us as well. Jesus knows the myriad of things that plague us as individuals and as communities of faith.

But Jesus also knows, and models, the glory that is possible when one is filled with God rather than plagued by fear or ambition.

It is not our work to make ourselves holy. Conversion is the work of God. We cannot earn righteous, no matter how hard we labor. Only God is righteous, but through Christ, God chooses to reckon us as righteous- to free us from slavery and death.

We are called to the table, warts and all, to remember the story, to receive the bread, to accept the wine, and to trust that God working in us and through us is working His purpose out even though we may have no idea how that is happening.

Salvation is the work of God. Our calling is to serve Him as best as we can, not so that we may be great in each other's eyes but so that we may be close to Him and to all God's children, in His name.

Let us come to the table on this night in full witness to the sacrifice being made on our behalf. Let us make an offering of our fears and our weaknesses, not our imagined strength. Let us offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, to the One who is offering Himself to save us.

Then let us simply trust that Easter will indeed come, in the scripture, and in our lives. AMEN.