At This Table
For to us was born today, in the city of David, a savior, which is Christ, my Lord and our hope. Can’t you feel the power of God in those blessed words?
Merry Christmas! The New Year rises and falls on our ability to invite people to the table and God’s promise to sit with us there.
How can this not be our Christian desire? The tears are leaving a well-worn path down my cheek. My emotions have come at the craft of Idina Menzel. I have realized that music connects me emotionally to a place where God moves my actions in the way that a skilled Masseur moves my hand to involuntary motion by compressing and releasing nerves. I have no choice but to flex and grasp in obedience.
There are emanating truths that transcend our religious, political and ideological differences. They come from the heart of God. These irresistible acts are pressed into our psyche because we are created to hear God’s voice. We are hard-wired to respond to God’s audible sighs.
As Christmas comes into its own, we notice that people react to the promise of goodness, hospitality, generosity and practical expressions of goodwill. I contend that this is the DNA imprint left on humanity by God’s creation. After all, we are made in the image of God, but the spirit of Christmas goes far beyond a simple outward expression of Samaritan intentions.
It is the season most marked by the story of God’s display of care and investment… of love. Jesus Christ was born to us, for us, because of our need, and inspired by our condition. It is the single most distinction of the Christian God, that He became Emmanuel, God with us.
It was not a gesture to the desperate masses but a complete manifestation of love, demonstrated and awakened in each of us because we know we were made for more. We also know that the “more” is not just a good feeling. In fact, some people react to the season of God’s profound love with a reaction that is the worst of our behavior, but even that is still a reaction, a response to God’s voice in each of us. It makes me wonder.
Is there still room at the table for those we disagree with? Is there a place of hospitality at the feast prepared by my Lord? My heart feels it. My soul cries for it above the din demanding to have its own way, to be recognized as right, important, and valuable. Not all that long ago, I did not want to share my place at our own table with outsiders. I wanted it for myself. I fought for the quiet right to be aloof, distant and exclusionary, but that is not the heart of God. It is not our Christmas. It is not our heart.
This year, I would love to see the Church of Christ open its spots at the table to dissenters and revolutionaries and to embittered, hostile and angry rejectors. I wonder if I would be quiet enough in that room, accepting enough. As we invite, I pray that people may see a tiny glow that comes from standing in closeness to the baby sent to the stable.
I know that we often hear about our rights in this day of opposition. I am just foolish enough to believe that if I act the part of the lamb and live more like the messiah at His birth, the residual imprint that exists in each life may vibrate to the tones of God. Today I am wishing Merry Christmas to the enemies of God. I am bidding God’s grace and light to pour out in the lives of rapists, terrorists, thieves and murderers, for my keeping them away from my table has done little to move them toward the love of God and His forgiveness. Merry Christmas!