I find pleasure in planning a dinner, carefully choosing favorite recipes, preparing a table with a beautiful cloth and napkins, setting out the best dishes, and serving the finest food I can offer to my friends and family. But it isn’t just the food and the sharing of hospitality that draw me to the table again and again. It’s the larger sense of what the table signifies, the conversations that ensue, how we are nourished by one another, what we find at the table that is life-giving.
All through Advent, the waiting and hoping that are part of this season may include the promise of well-laid tables and special treats reserved for the celebration of Christ’s coming among us at Christmastime. Dining together is one of the marks of this season. Can the tables in our homes be connected to the tables where each week we receive Holy Communion?
As we set our own tables and prepare the Christmas feasts, let us make room for all who long for Christ’s presence.
This message is adapted from “Dining in the Kingdom of God” written by Julie K. Aageson in the December 2005 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.
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