Tonight, this night, we are preparing to partake of the Lord's Supper, a sacrament. We will give you a piece of bread, a sip of wine and promise you that God is here. What's going on here?

Because we could not, knew not how, had not the means to come to God, God came to us. This is not how we climb up to God—through our good works, our projects, our noble ideals, our beautiful services of worship—tomorrow, between noon and three, we're going to see where all that leads. All of our ladders up to God always end in a climb up Calvary and the erection, not of a monument to our basic goodness, but a cross. Tomorrow, see on Calvary, just how far we will go to save ourselves by ourselves.

Tonight, here at the table, God gets down on our level. Once the church had seven sacraments; the Protestan…