A Dinner Invitation

What if you opened your mailbox and along with the bills and flyers was an old-fashioned embossed envelope. You pull out a note that says simply, "You are called to the wedding supper of the Lamb."

I got to thinking about this scenario because of the 23rd Psalm. One morning when we recited the poem, my older daughter pointed out something I had never seen before. Although David spends the first half of the Psalm comparing himself to a sheep, he spends the second half comparing himself to a guest.  

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

My cup runs over. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life;

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord

Forever.

David pictures himself nearly vanquished in the valley of the shadow of death, his enemies crowded round.  God, however, is at home, in his own house, getting dinner ready. Imagine the astonishment and envy of those enemies. Instead of destroying David, they have to watch while God sets a table for him.  When he comes in, God pours oil over his head in welcome.  When he sits down at the table, his cup is filled to the brim and over by his gracious host.    God doesn't offer David one short meal. Rather David is invited to dwell in the house of the Lord with all its abundant blessings forever.  

I want to be David.  I want to be invited to come to God's house for dinner.  In Matthew 22 Jesus offered just such a dinner invitation.  Once, he said, there was a king who hosted his son's wedding.  He sent out servants to invite the wealthy and the nobles (in Jesus's parable this is representative of either the Jewish ruling class or perhaps the Jews of that day altogether).  Some don't want to come, others snatch up the king's messengers to abuse or even murder them.  After exacting revenge, the disgusted king sends messengers out to beat the bushes, gathering everyone they found to come to the wedding supper (in this case representing both Jew and Gentile, noble and common, "righteous" and unrighteous gathered together into the Kingdom).  Luke with his typical sensitivity towards social justice tells a similar parable where the invited are too busy come so the wealthy landowner calls in the "poor and crippled and blind and lame." (Luke 14:16-24).   

Parables aside, Jesus was once a host himself.  To be fair we more often see him in the position of guest, perhaps because he was homeless.  Nonetheless at his last Passover supper, he stood in the rented room as his disciples' host. In the position of the lowest member of a host's household, he washed the disciples' feet.  At the head of their table, in the place of the host himself, he waited till everyone was reclining and told them this: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it, until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."  (Luke 22: 15-16).

The New Testament uses this phrase, "The kingdom of God" in a remarkably three-dimensional way.  Jesus sometimes uses it to describe the people following him right then but here he has a future fulfillment in view (Mark 1:15, John 4:23). To understand we have to consider the two related meanings of the phrase.  

Sometimes the Kingdom of God represents the living church.  We are now citizens of that great kingdom (Revelation 1:6).  So in communion we gather again at the table and receive from our host.  This time we pray, and the bread we receive is not from his hand but from his body, the wine not from his cup but from his side.  When we are there we are communing with him: guests at the fulfilled Passover once again hosted by the Savior (1 Corinthians 11).

Finally in the last incarnation of the Kingdom of God the resurrected saints will live eternally as the subjects of the King of all Kings.   The Passover is fulfilled most perfectly in the wedding supper of the Lamb.  John pictures it beautifully in Revelation 19:7-9. 

Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' " And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God."

The King, who once called all those lame, poor, unrighteous, unworthy people to come to his son's wedding, is calling still.  On that final day, when the church comes in all her glory arrayed as bride, we will be called to dinner.  We'll sit at God's table, to the admiration and envy of every person who hated his name.  He'll fill our cup again and again.  We'll rejoice and give Him glory dressed in the good we've done in the world. And we'll be blessed to be guests of God. 

Helene

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), Copyright(c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Who Does She Think She Is?

Constructive criticism.  Advice. Reproof. Correction.  Instruction.  We have a lot of words, both Biblical and secular, to describe this process of correcting an erring sister. Yet despite all the language surrounding the issue, I wonder how much of it is actually going on?  Of course, if reproof is being done correctly, I would never know if someone else has been corrected because it would be private (Matthew 18:15).  Yet no one outside of my husband has ever taken me aside to reprove me, and I'm positive I've needed it through the years.  I'm inclined to believe that this kind of loving, patient correction has become rare in the church.

S-21

S-21 is the prison where Pol Pot had thousands of political dissidents, ethnic and religious minorities, and ordinary innocents interrogated and tortured.  I walked through it on a recent visit to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.  

Literally sick to my stomach, I sank onto a bench outside the museum and tried to pray. The victim's pain was stunning.  Even more nauseating was a question lingering in my mind. How did this happen?  I've read biographies that tried to explain how men become tyrants, dictators and mass murders, but that's not what was bothering me. Rather it was this: How do ordinary men become professional torturers and executioners? In one upstairs galley I read the profiles of the wardens and the prisoners - nearly identical.

Walking Back to God

We can recognize an emergency, right?  We'd never let a situation slide without recognizing the moment of no return. Then comes the moment that the doctor says, "It's colon cancer/ liver cancer/ lung cancer." Or our husband comes home, papers in hand, and says, "I want a divorce."  And we wonder where was the moment?  How many times did we say to ourselves, "I should eat/drink/smoke less." or "I ought to work harder on my marriage"? 

Have you ever thought, "I used to be closer to God." I have. Even worse there have been times that I have let that thought play over in my mind for weeks, even months and done nothing to regain the lost ground.  

This is an emergency. I don't want you to look up and say, "Wait?!  How did I get here? I did not mean to leave God behind!  How did sin push me into this mess?"  If you've had the nagging thought, "I wish I was closer to God again," today's the day!

What Motivates Mom?

I bought an app a while back called "Motivated Moms." It's a program that takes all the chores in my house, from daily chores like dishes to less frequent ones like cleaning light fixtures, and assigns them to specific days.  Each day when I get up, I have a chore list. It's set up in such a way that if I keep up with the daily chores for a few weeks, I'll be able to keep my house maintained with less effort, so I can focus on more important things. 5.99 is expensive for an app, but it was worth it to me.  

There is one thing the app won't do, though.  It doesn't make me want to do the work.  It certainly gives me an organized way to keep the house clean, but as far as I know, there is no app to cure laziness.  

Contentment: A Guest Post

We've been enjoying highlighting some amazing sisters who are different from us: older, wiser, more experienced (Dene and Netagene).  Today though we wanted to share our space with an equally amazing sister who is like us in more ways than we can count.  Let's see...she's a young mom; she's got this adorable little girl; she's beautiful inside and out and lives in the lovely land of Australia...no wait...maybe not so similar.  Please after you read this lovely piece all about being content, skip over to her blog and enjoy more of the adventures, of Velle, Tony and Arddun.

I have not been enjoying my holiday.

This sounds dreadfully posh and ungrateful once you realise that I am typing this while intermittently nursing a cold Coke Zero and drinking in the splendiferous view that only a five-star resort in Fiji could conjure. It is postcard-perfect here. From where I am lounging, there is nothing between me and the ocean except a thin glass balustrade. Coconut trees strategically dotted along the coastline by wise hotel developers in times past now sway lazily behind me in the breeze. It looks and appears ridiculously idyllic here.

Bible Talk

My nerdliness is firmly established, so I don't mind admitting that I'm a talk radio fan. I listen to it whenever I'm in the car to keep my mind engaged. Lately, though, I've been noticing a trend of being mildly depressed and anxious after hearing too much talk radio. It's no wonder.  Talk hosts are masters of sensationalism.  It's how they make their living.

One day, when I was tired of hearing about how common core will be the death of education, I started flipping stations (carefully, with my eyes on the road).  On the lower band, where I often hear fuzzy sounding gospel music or screaming preachers (no offense to any screaming preachers out there; it just isn't my style), I instead found a scholarly sounding man giving an excellent exegesis of a prayer of Daniel, including some fantastic application.