If we are looking to see how families are connected to the generations who have gone before as we live our lives in everyday reality, we have only to look to the times shared around the dining room table during celebratory mealtimes.
What is true of the Lord's Table: Here we are connected to God's people who have gone before by a shared meal with its tastes and smells, as well as a shared faith. Coming to the Table celebrated the same way with the same food, same drink, and same format every time we break the bread and present the cup we can connect the decades together in ways that nothing else does. As I partake again of the table, I am not only eating for myself the bread of forgiveness and the drink of eternal life, I am mindful that I remain connected with those who have gone before. Here at the table Gary Douma, Ann Jagt, Buster McFadden, Carol Boffing, Ethel Smith, Cunningham Jones, Gert Kappinga, Jean Evans, live still. We do this in remembrance of our Elder Brother, the Lord Christ, but the table -- this shared meal -- also reminds me ... reminds us that we are not atomized individuals but we are part of a family ... the family of God. In belonging to our Father who art in Heaven and as secured by our Elder Brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, we remain covenantally connected to the sainted dead and to one another. We are the family of God and as God's family, we are covenantally connected to the generations now gone because we all, both dead and alive, remain Covenantally connected to our Elder Brother who is our covenantal connection and who gives Himself in the faith-filled eating of the Bread and the drinking of the Wine. |
