Oh God Father, on heaven's throne, you have prepared for us a crown

Oh God Father, on heaven's throne, you have prepared for us a crown if we stay in your Son, if we suffer with him the cross and the pain, if we surrender ourselves to him in this life and if we struggle continually to enter into his community. You tell us what we need to know, through your Son, if we have community with him. . . . You gave your beloved Son to us to be our head. He has marked out for us the road we should take, so that we would not lose our way and find ourselves outside of his community . . . Therefore, Christians, oh little flock, let us all look together at how he walked before us here on the earth. Let us become like him in love and in suffering. Let us keep our covenant with him and not stay away from eating his flesh and his blood. His flesh and his blood, the food he gave us, must be understood like this: In eating his flesh and blood, the Spirit brings us into community with him. . . . God redeems us together with Christ. He serves us through his Son. His Son is the rock and the cornerstone of the house of his commune -- his wife, his companion and his love, through whom he works on the earth. . . . Therefore come! Come all you newborn Christians! Come in sincerity to Christ the passover lamb, whose kingdom and community shall never end! All the members of the body of Christ do his work and his will . . . even unto death. They have all become one bread with Christ, the bread that is broken like he was broken on the cross for our sins. Christ is the bread of life. He gave his flesh and his blood for us, and the Spirit teaches us how to eat it right. . . . The lamb is eaten with sorrow and bitter herbs, for he who will not suffer with Christ, and he who keeps himself back from eating his flesh and his blood -- he who worries about the cross or tribulation -- cannot find the body of Christ. The Lamb must be eaten completely. Nothing shall be left, from the beginning to the end. In all distress and need, we dare not turn away from the Lamb. We are to stay in closest unity with him, not allowing our faith in him or our love for him to grow cold. Then what is left of the Passover meal must be burned. That is the end, in distress and need, when the flesh dies completely. We must keep the covenant according to his will, and he will, after a time, bring all our suffering to an end. The Spirit fits us with a new garment when we come to him, when his love burns within us, and when we confess his works in our flesh. The old garment must be thrown away and the old leaven scrubbed out, so that his work may be accomplished within us. The old wineskin cannot contain the new wine. The old man cannot comprehend Christ. He hates Christ and cannot walk on the same way with him. Come with joy, and dressed in new clothing! Come discerning the evil from the good! . . . Come and draw near to the Passover feast if you have taken his mark: his Spirit, the water and the blood. This is the Christians' possession, and to this they cling. It is the mark of baptism, which they receive of their own free will, and in which their old flesh drowns. This is how Christ taught his discipes to keep the Passover in his flesh: He broke for them the bread and gave thanks. He gave them the cup and they drank. . . . With the bread he showed that whoever has his Spirit belongs to him, becomes one flesh with him, a member of his body and of his commune for which he died. He died to redeem his commune from the world. Like one bread is made from many grains, and one wine is made from many grapes, all true Christians become one bread and one wine in Christ the Lord. He sustains us and gives us true love in community with him. -- Ausbund 55