Maundy Thursday Hymn ... "Holy banquet, Sacred Feast"

The celebration of the Eucharist is a primary focus for my personal theology and spirituality. Sharing in this holy feast is a source of nourishment as I am fed and nurtured.

Sharing in communion reminds me of God's real presence with me no matter what I may be experiencing in my journey of life or faith. Receiving the gift of the bread of life and drinking of the cup of salvation is a priviledge which also carries with it a responsiblity. I am changed and transformed in my experience of God which requires that I faithfully do what I can to make a difference in transforming the world I live in and the people I meet. This vocation and ministry is one we share as followers of Jesus Christ. It is a humbling vocation. At the holy table, sharing in the holy banquet, we don't simply receive passively, we're called to actively participate.

Too often in the world we live we feel we have to understand and explain all things. The Eucharist is a mystery and therefore can't easily be explained our understood with our finite human minds. What exactly happens and how it happens is something that we trust in through the working of the Holy Spirit. The bread and wine are presented, blessed, broken and shared; in that act of celebration and thanksgiving something profound happens.

On Maundy Thursday we celebrate the Last Supper Jesus had with his disciples in the upper room. As they celebrated Passover, this simple meal of bread and wine took on such significance for we who have become the church. Jesus broke bread and said, "This is my body broken for you"; He took the cup of wine and said, "This is my blood shed for you." What a gift to not only remember that sacred moment of Holy Week, but to bring it into the present. We're called like the disciples to take our place at the banquet table; what a privilege; what an honor; what a responsiblity too!

I have written the words to this hymn to reflect the profound gift I receive at the eucharistic table, and that I hope you receive too. It is set to the lenten hymn tune "Song 13".

"Holy Banquet, Sacred Feast"

Meter: 7777
Tune: Song 13

Holy banquet, sacred feast
meant for greatest and for least.
Christ presides at breaking bread
for the hungry to be fed.

Sacred mystery so divine
as he passes cup of wine.
Body broken, blood outpoured
our slavation is assured.

This my body given for you
bread of heaven to renew
and for you my blood is shed
our redemption as he bled.

May we take our honored place
invitation by God's grace
and receive beyond compare
God's great blessing to declare.

Now may we his body share
live his risen life in prayer;
bring to life a hope made new
as we drink with thanks to you.


Text: copyright, The Rev. Mark Kinghan, 2010. Not to be reproduced or redistributed in any form without the express written permission of the author.

Christmas Hymn ... "In the Ordinary Moments"

Christmas is such a special time of faith, and for the renewing of our relationship with God. And yet, I have been reminded that God also uses the ordinariness of life to reach out to us, to speak to us and to call us into further relationship with Him.

The gift of the Incarnation is a prime example of that. In many ways, Mary was an ordinary young girl living an ordinary life engaged to an ordinary man. Yet something extraordinary happened to her and through her.

And there was the ordinary politicians who were doing their ordinary work of governing their nations and peoples. They were conducting an ordinary census which took these two ordinary individuals on a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And speaking of Bethlehem, talk about ordinary small village that was barely on the map. And yet something so extraordinary would happen when they reached their destination, something so much more than simply being counted.

The shepherds were ordinary guardians of the sheep out in an ordinary pasture doing their ordinary nightly chore of watching over their sheep. Yet something extraordinary was made known to them which they then witnessed with their own eyes. And through them God spread an extraordinary message.

The stable was an ordinary barn with ordinary animals making their ordinary noises, eating from their ordinary trough of hay and oats. Yet something extraordinary happened there as God used that space to be born into this world.

As God takes on human flesh, something very extraordinary happens. God becomes one of us and we are blessed beyond measure. God reaches into our very souls and gives us a message of hope and promise that we really do mean something to Him, that God loves us more than we could ever imagine, that God wants us to be free of all that burdens us in this ordinary life we live.

This Christmas, ask yourself what are the ordinary moments, routines, traditions and even people that are in your life; and in those ordinary moments, how, when and where do you experience the extraordinary gift of God's presence and God's hand of healing upon you and this world in which we live.

I wrote this hymn on the theme of the exraordinary gift we receive in the ordinary moments of our lives. I hope that it inspires you to recognize the power of our extraordinary God right here today in your life and in mine!

"In the Ordinary Moments"

metre: 8787
tune: Stuttgart

In the ordinary moments
of our ordinary lives;
promises of sacred presence
as Incarnate God arrives.

Humble in a stable lowly,
cradled in a cattle stall;
nothing special, yet so holy,
brings redemption meant for all.

Angels sang their sacred message
to the shepherds unaware;
they should go and pay their homage
for good news was in the air.

Not expecting such great blessing
in the ordinary ways
of our world and daily living
God inspires us to amaze.

In the ordinary moments
of our ordinary lives;
promises of sacred presence
as Incarnate God arrives.

Text: copyright, The Rev. Mark Kinghan, 2009. Not to be reproduced or redistributed in any form without the express written permission of the author.