In the next 20 days, we’ll be bombarded with messages about the miracle of the Incarnation: Is it about glitz, gifts and impressing others? Is it about humility, redemption and reconciliation? Is it best celebrated with the fatted ox, or a dinner of herbs, where love is? How do we honor the King in the manger?
In less than an hour, mellow horns will sound all over Jerusalem. In one of the most casual cities on earth, folks will put on something with a little sparkle: a satin suit jacket or a velvet dress, perhaps. They’ll gather extended families around one groaning table. They’ll sit in candlelight and sing songs they’ve known since childhood. They’ll read stories from God’s book. It’s as if we have Christmas every week!
Like Christmas Eve, no one should be left alone on this night. If you stand at the Western Wall and look forlorn, you’re likely to be invited in by strangers. If you have a home, you’re likely to be racking your brain all week: Who will we have for Shabbat?
Here, for Christians too, the Sabbath is centered around the table. We don’t have to invent a sense of family as we share our table this way. Is it the fact that we’re in the minority here? I don’t know. But we simply enjoy a bond that’s already there: these folks are our brothers in Christ. And somehow, it’s natural to swap tales of God’s glorious work in our lives, which naturally leads to praise and prayer. It was only after I discovered the richness of this tradition that I remembered: The early believers broke bread from house to house. Sometimes, doing church meant a meal.
Does that sound like too much work? I’ve had a month of exhaustingly beautiful hospitality, and I feel your pain. Oh friends, whether we’re celebrating Christ’s birth, or the Sabbath, I hope we escape the expectations and pressure, the fear and frustration that so easily besets us. The Christmas gift Jesus brought: His own self. The meal He sets out: His own self. A wilderness, five loaves, and two fish were festive enough for five thousand, when He was there.
It dawned on me, one Friday afternoon as I planned and cooked and cleaned for Sabbath, that we are the guests, and the table is God’s. The hospitality is His; the agenda is His; the fellowship comes from Him; He provides the meal for both stomach and heart. Remember the disciples at Emmaus? They recognized their risen Lord, not in His walk, not in His words, and not in some elaborate meal, but in the way He blessed the bread.
We celebrate, yes. We stop working, yes. In order to be with Him. Let’s simply give ourselves to each other, and to Him. Let’s wait and see what He will do.
Wishing you the simple joy of Immanuel – today, and in this Christmas season!
Elisabeth Adams 