THE LONGEST TABLE
Today
is World Wide Communion Sunday and Christians all over the world have gathered
at the Lord’s Table to remember Jesus Christ.
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In
Spokane, our son’s family attended a church that had an exceptionally long table.
It was long because there is indented across the entire front of the table a
carving of the last Supper.
Thinking
of long tables, a writer in the Christian
Standard magazine once pointed out how appropriate a long table can be. He
begins by describing his grandmother’s Christmas dinner table. He says, “It stretched through the dining room to the
living room of her old farmhouse. It was so long there was a place for all her
children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It was so long that there was room for folks far from home – Ireland,
Germany, even Tennessee. … That table was so long that it was never full until
family members who sat there in years gone by were brought back by a fond
remembrance or a hilarious memory of Christmases past. It was Christmas at
grandmother’s house, and it was the longest table I had ever seen.” Then he
added: “But I came to know different, or
better. The communion table is the longest table in the world. And I know just
how far it stretches” (Lee Magness, Christian Standard, June 10, 2007).
You and
I also know how long this table is, don’t we? It stretches from here to the
poor in Calcutta’s slums, to the affluent in Anglican Cathedrals, and to the
weary warriors in the Mid-East. It has room for the peasant farmers of India,
the beaded Maasai woman of Kenya, the immigrant laborer from South America, and
the socialite from New York. There is always room for more at this table, and
all are welcome. It is the longest table in the world.
Certainly,
it has room for us and Jesus invites us to come, to eat this broken bread, his
body given for us; to drink this cup, his blood shed for us. Come to the
Thanksgiving Table, the longest table in the world.
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