I’ve been amazed lately at the magic that can happen around a table. When you invite someone to join you for a meal – the sacred happens-eyes turn from screens to eye to eye contact, conversations tend to go deeper, stories are told, family recipes are shared, and time stands still for a bit. This year our family has tried to be more intentional about extending invites and having “community dinners” around OUR worn table. It’s my favorite to see people of all different ages, ethnicity, circles, and backgrounds sitting together and sharing a common meal.
Imagine what it must have been like to be around the table with Jesus that Last Passover Supper?
Over Christmas we were visiting family in Tennessee. We went to their small, new church one Sunday. It was a morning I was feeling down for some reason and fighting my demons of insecurity. I got nervous when I heard they were having “communion” that morning. I had noticed upon entering the multi-purpose room that in a side wing there was a long rugged wooden table set up with bread and large silver goblets of grape juice. We we were instructed that when we were ready, we were to go sit at the table and take the elements.
In a new environment with people I didn’t know – I kind of wanted to just hide a little. I didn’t feel like I belonged around that table with the rest of these folks who shared life together.
But then I heard the pastor say “Around the table – ” all are welcome.”
And just after that comment, my middle boy grabbed my hand and said, “let’s go mom.” He led me over to the table and we pulled up a knobby wooden chair. And there beside me was an elderly older man, and next to me, my 8 year old son, and at the end a teenage girl rolled up in her wheelchair. And tears filled my eyes and I smiled… “All are welcome at the table.” We’re family here.
I closed my eyes and imagined it was Peter sitting there, and John across the table, and then Jesus there in the center. What a motley crew Jesus had gathered around him! He chose the unpopular tax collectors, smelly fishermen, and even a man he knew would be disloyal to him later. I’m guessing they probably shared many meals together and somehow this ragamuffin bunch had become friends.
And all of a sudden it donned on me….I had been invited to that table too. There was room for me.
“And Jesus took the bread“, that familiar staple at every Passover meal (like Gramma’s homemade rolls at Christmas). “And he gave thanks and he broke it. This is my body broken for you.”
His friends had never thought of the bread like this before. It symbolized Jesus, who would be broken and killed for all of us.
“And he took the cup, and said, ‘this is my blood poured out for you.’ “That dark, crimson red. No longer just wine, but a symbol of what he went through to make us clean, to overlook our impurities, to invite us to the table to be with Him.
So this Easter, as you pull up a chair and gather around a table, remember that YOU were chosen to sit with Jesus. He pictured YOU there beside Him. It’s the message of communion and Easter – to be WITH Him.
He’s made a place for you.
You’ve been invited.
He gives you a sense of belonging.
“But YOU are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.
That you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”
I Peter 2;9
–Alyssa