One of those at table with Jesus
said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”
Imagine seeing with your own eyes Pharisees, scribes, elders and chief
priests dining with the Lord. Wow! If digital cameras existed back then, this picture
would have been the picture perfect image of heaven on earth. Why not?
The Lord should be surrounded by His people, the people of God, the Chosen
People of God. They should be enjoying a
meal together.
But maybe there was a reason why cameras didn’t exist back then. Maybe the Lord didn’t want us to have a false
image of what heaven looks like. Maybe
there would be some problems with this picture.
Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God. It seems like everyone was enjoying the meal
and conversation until someone blurted out, “Blessed
is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” At
that moment, I think the music stopped, the Lord stood still, and everyone
stopped talking. At that moment, the
Lord found it necessary to set some things straight, to clear some things
up.
We often think of heaven as a banquet in which our closest friends are
invited and agree to attend. But our
banquets are not always God’s banquets.
Our guests do not always include God’s guests. Just like our plans are not always God’s
plans, so our invitations are not always His invitations. Our meals are not always to His liking.
From the very beginning the Lord knew that His own would reject Him. Although Pharisees and scribes would invite
Him over for dinner, they would never dare come to the Lord’s dinner. That was just too risky. What
would their friends think? What would their
relatives say? Of course, the
Pharisees and scribes found it safe to invite Jesus, they could always use
their invitation as an excuse to drill the Lord for hours, but it was not kosher
to accept an invitation from Him. That
would mean accepting (or acknowledging) Him, and that would be going way too
far.
The problem with this picture of heaven on earth is that everyone and
everything is backwards, screwed up and completely reversed!
First. We are not the host and
the Lord the invited guest. The Lord is the
host and we are His invited guests. We
have been invited to His banquet, not the other way around. Deep down it’s the same old same old: We think we are “God” and God is our creation. We are not! He is not!
We have been invited to
participate in His Universe, not the other way around.
Second. The meal isn’t the right
meal. We keep trying to eat our meal,
not the Lord’s meal. We keep trying to
serve the Lord our laws, not His laws. Again,
time has not erased this problem. It’s only made things worse!
Third. We never invite
everyone. We just invite a select group
of friends. Of course we invite the
Lord, but deep down we hope He is a no show.
The reality, however, is different.
The Lord keeps putting undesirable people in our lives! He keeps insisting that we invite everyone
and attend to everyone: the “blind”, the
“crippled” and the “lame”. In other
words: the prideful, the vane and the
sensual.
The problem with our guest list is that it is far too small for the
Lord. Yes, the people we wish to invite
should be invited, but far too many guests are missing from our list.
Finally. The banquet is not to
be held in our room. It is to be held in
the upper room. Christ decided to hold
His own banquet, His own feast, His
own Supper, inviting whomever He wished to attend. He invited those voted least likely to
succeed (His Apostles) and extended His invitation to those who never ever
expected to receive an invitation: the Romans,
the Greeks – the Gentiles.
The Host offered himself to all.
God’s ways are not our ways.
Thank God! The Lord does not consider
His relatives or His friends to be the only Chosen People. He considers those who love Him and accept
Him (do His Will) to be His brothers, sisters, mother and friends.
If only the guests that evening knew...If only they knew who it was that
was in their presence; that was reclining near them. If they did, they would have been present at
the Lord’s meal, as His guest, reclining at His dining table, in the upper room,
in Jerusalem, among His brothers and sisters, his friends.
All are invited. Not all accept
the invitation. All are welcomed. Not all walk in.
The Jews believed that because they were Jews they would automatically
be saved - en masse – by God. Not so!
Not so, says the Lord. Instead,
salvation goes to those who accept the Lord for who He is, not for who we
are. He invites. We can accept.
This is the new normal. Let’s
not miss out.
I hope u Vote Father ! :)
ReplyDeleteFather, did the Lord invite the America people? Are we still operating under God? Tonight election bring me down to my knees and ask the Lord for mercy.
ReplyDeleteI will kneel down and pray with you @ Anonymous:( I will start praying more often then before and ask God to help me and my little family get through the next 4 years
DeleteDoes anyone else feel afraid of God, but not afraid of Jesus? I want to understand this, I have always struggles with it. I believe in the trinity, I have experienced true miracles in my life, blessed events during the most difficult times. Is it because Jesus took human form and walked among us, here, on this little planet called earth? When I look up at the stars, knowing all the science of how far away they are and how long it would take to get there, I am always suddenly struck with fear. Admittedly this fear has gotten worse since my husband passed away 8 months ago. I always felt everything would be alright as long as we had each other. We went through many difficult things in our 21 years together. Lose of jobs, lose of loved ones, lose of our home. I always felt that God blessed our lives and lead us to one another. We were blessed with a beautiful, loving marriage. I don't know why God thought I could make it here without him, I should have gone first. I pray for him, that Jesus keeps him in is loving care and mercy, he was a good man, a wonderful man, he believed in Jesus as our Saviour. Now, even though I also believe, I am consumed with fear. This world is a dark and evil place, and I feel I am in it alone. I would give all that I have to hold him one more time, spend one more day with him.
ReplyDeleteIf I could say anything to those of you who still have a spouse in your life, it would be, don't waist a single moment fighting over silly things that don't really matter. Devote yourselves to one another and celebrate everyday, every holiday gathering, every single moment. Don't speak harshly to one another because you are a gift to one another. Remember your vows, live up to them, if you haven't always done so, make that your new normal.