Feast of Fellowship

“A table has been set before me, and the bounty that I feast on is not food but fellowship.”

I penned these words during the Thanksgiving holiday while contemplating the table of abundance and the faces of those I loved gathered around it. I knew that the fullness of my heart would be far greater than the fullness of my belly which is saying something considering the amount of food that was consumed.

Now we are heading into another holiday where there would normally be a gathering together of friends and family around a table overflowing. But this year will be different. As we enter this season of Passover, we have been forced into a solemn assembly by a mandate of social distancing in order to reduce the spread of the Coronavirus. Otherwise known as COVID-19.

The table that is prepared at Passover is one of remembrance. By consuming a seder meal of bitter herbs, boiled eggs, charoset, romaine lettuce, parsley, roasted Lamb, unleavened bread, and wine, the Jewish people remember the bitterness of the bondage of their ancestors in Egypt and their deliverance from it.

In reading the account of Jesus’ last night with the disciples in John 13, I see something I’ve never seen before.

“It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now loved them to the end.”

He loved them to the end. One translation says, “to the uttermost”. Another says, “He showed them the full extent of his love.”

“This is my body broken for you.”

“This is my blood shed for you.”

Think of it. “On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it” I Corinthians 11:23-24. The beauty of this is almost beyond description. He knew what was about to happen, yet he handed them the sacraments in the same way that he handed himself over to those who would nail him to the cross. Knowingly. Willingly. He had made it clear that no one was taking his life from Him. Rather, he was freely laying it down. Why?

It was all for love.

I think of him hanging on the cross looking down through his suffering and loving them. Loving us. Loving me. To the uttermost.

He has invited me to His table. A place of communion with him. He extends to me the bread of his flesh and the cup of his blood. As I partake, I remember and am made full on fellowship with him.