I had a dinner party for the first time this past weekend in my new home. I opened my doors to new beginnings and welcomed in some new friends.
We gathered.
It’s a simple but profound offering to others and ourselves.
The gift of an open door and a warm cooked meal. Hands held at the table and stories being shared.
There is so much simple, beautiful, and holy richness found at a table.
This is where Jesus did most of His ministry with His disciples.
He gathered and then He shared. He ate and He prayed and He loved those who sat with Him.
This is the gospel message in its entirety.
Gather-Love-Fill-Send
We gather to join hands with others. We love because this is the greatest commandment, we fill to spread the message of the gospel, and then we send others to do the same.
And it all starts at a table.
Today, I encourage you to open your doors, to share a meal, to gather, to love, to fill, and then to send.
What is holy and beautiful is the message that it gives. Loving others by opening a door for them to experience love and then allowing the Spirit to encourage them to do the same.
Perhaps before we invite people to Jesus or invite them to church, we should invite them to dinner.
New Testament scholar N. T. Wright captured something of this sentiment when he wrote, “When Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory, he gave them a meal.”
One of the most important spiritual disciplines for us to recover in the kind of world in which we live is the discipline of table fellowship.- Barry Jones
One of the most beautiful meal scenes in all of Scripture occurs on the banks of the Sea of Galilee after the resurrection of Jesus. It’s recorded in John 21. After a futile night of fishing, the disciples encounter Jesus, who calls out to them from the shore. Acting impulsively, as always, Peter dives into the water, fully clothed, in an effort to get to Jesus. As he emerges from the sea, dripping wet, he moves toward Jesus, who has made a fire on the beach. And at that moment, he smells a hauntingly familiar smell. The word that John the storyteller uses to describe the fire that Jesus made is a word that occurs in only one other place in Scripture—earlier in his own story (John 18:18). There the word used is of the fire where Peter and the others warmed themselves on the night of Jesus’s arrest and trial. The charcoal fire of John 18:18 was the place of Peter’s denial. For Peter, shame had a smell—that of burning charcoal. But the charcoal fire of John 21 is the place of Peter’s restoration. The simple invitation of Jesus to his friend is, “Come and have breakfast” (21:12).
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Holy Beautiful Life
Featured Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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