As a part of our Lenten experience this year, and for the past quarter century, I've played make-believe, pretending I was a person who lived 2000 years ago, in the pages of the Bible. The final act will take place tomorrow afternoon and evening, as I will try to put myself into the skin of Simon of Cyrene, the pilgrim in Jerusalem who went from by-stander to cross-bearer on that first Good Friday. The fact that I've been doing such a thing for twenty-five years seems to add ammunition to one of the criticisms against Christianity - the claim that all worship is escape from reality ... a play-acting of sorts. Maybe you've heard the charge: the chancel is a stage; the pastor is an actor; the vestments are costumes; and the audience is comprised of the people in the pew. And you know what? The shoe fits - and I don't think the criticism says anything negative about Christianity. I rather like the idea that we are here to "escape reality." God knows that there is enough about reality that needs escaping!

In a real sense, Jesus chose an obscure, out-of-the-way upper room for the Passover meal ... precisely to ESCAPE the reality crowding in upon him. Reality can be pretty nasty at times. Therefore, to escape reality" is okay - even necessary - as long as we Christians recognize two things: 1. we come to worship in order to encounter a greater Reality; and 2. we leave from worship with renewed vigor to confront the world we've left behind!

And so, it comes down to this: we gather this night to play make believe. That's how one writer explains it all. "It is make-believe. You make believe that the one who breaks the bread and blesses it, is not the slightly paunchy pastor who smells of Old Spice ... but Jesus of Nazareth. You make believe that the pita bread and the Paisano wine are nothing less than his body and blood. You make believe that by swallowing them you are swallowing his life into your life and that there is nothing on earth or heaven more important for you to do than this. It is a game you play because he said to play it. "Do this. Do this in remembrance of me."

Just as it's okay to escape reality for the moment, to encounter a greater Reality, so it is okay to play make believe; children do it a lot and have a fine time at it. Why should kids have all the fun? But again, one rather vital difference between the games children play and the make believe we do around the Lord's Table ... kids often play games as a fantasy, in order to escape the real world; Christians at the Lord's Table play make believe as a way of preparing for that real world!

Life was difficult for the disciples ... and about to become more so. Each person in that upper room hideaway, to a man, knew that there was great resentment against Jesus by both Jewish leaders and Roman officials. Each of the disciples was aware (and one, more so than the others), that Jesus was in grave danger ... and in danger of the grave. For three years the disciples had followed him. In some ways they could not believe that the rest of their lives would not find him in their midst. We have those same feelings when a friend or loved one dies or moves far away. "How different life is; how empty," we think. "How can we go on?"

Though the disciples did not realize it at the moment, Jesus was presenting them with the key to their future. A make believe way to assure his presence among them. And you know what? They believed it. And you know why? Because it is true. The bread and the wine ... these two most common of elements become, under the right make believe circumstances, the body and blood of the Lord!

That's what the Church has had the audacity to preach all these years: under the right make believe circumstances ... pita bread and Paisano wine can become, do become, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. And not because the pastor says the "correct" things in just the right way ... but because the Lord promised his presence in this very way.

You know already, perhaps, that the words of Jesus, "this is my body," translates from the Latin hoc est corpus, which at some point in history got slurred into the magical incantation, hocus-pocus. Presto-chango: bread into body; wine into blood. But there is nothing magical about the promise of Jesus to be present in bread and wine; he is just there, just because he said he would be.

And how appropriate the elements: bread and wine. Two of the most common foods on all of planet earth: bread and wine. Oh, but what the grain has to go through to become flour for the bread and oh what the grapes have to go through to become wine. Well, that was what Jesus chose to go through to become our Savior.

And so tonight it is make believe time. And all of us are invited to the chancel - to receive the bread; to drink the wine. Frederick Buechner maintains that to eat together is to meet at the level of our basic human need, our need to alleviate our hunger. But, beyond the need to eat is the need and the desire to be in communion with others; with each other. I need you to fill my emptiness and you need me to fill yours. And, as Buechner concludes, as for the emptiness that's still left over, our Lord is ready to fill it. The one who claims for himself the title "bread of life," will fill our emptiness.

So yes, it's make believe time. Tonight, play that it is real; play that it all makes sense. For it is our ultimate reality - and in the context of our faith, it all makes sense. And if what we do at worship seems a childish thing to do, do it in remembrance that you are a child of God. Do it, in remembrance of him.