The Family Thanksgiving Meal.

Our Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  Countless of families will meet either on Sunday or on Monday of this upcoming weekend, for a great meal and a great time together.  A common Thanksgiving dinner will include of roast turkey, turkey stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie.  Some people say that this is enough to kill a person.

Play a little game with me.  Let’s assume you really love this family Thanksgiving time together.  Perhaps you can recall some great holiday meals.  The idea of forgoing or skipping Thanksgiving this year would be the furthest thing from your mind.  You can even taste the pumpkin pie.  Now let me take this little story in a different direction.

What if a family member called you and said, “I’m sorry, but I have other things to do.  I’ll try to get there next year.”  How would you feel?   I mean the meal was about family. It’s hard to have a family meal when all the family is missing?

What if another family member called and said, “I’m out of the country.  I’ll try to SKYPE you sometime. Sorry I can’t make it.”  Well, that hurts.  There’s not much you can do about it.  But that hurts.  On-line family Thanksgiving – well it’s not the same.

“I’ll be eating at home,” says another.  “No doubt, I’ll be thinking of you all gathered there, but I’ll just eat my own meal at home.”  Mmmm, it’s not a family Thanksgiving, is it? 

Sadly, every Lord’s Day, professing Christians miss the Sabbath feast that God prepares for them with their brothers and sisters.  It’s a Family Dinner.  Some find better things to do.  Some eat their meal digitally.  Some just make their own dinner.  Any way you carve the turkey, it doesn’t seem like a Family Meal.  The feast that the Lord prepares for His people is full of bounty and manifold provision.  It’s a pre-cursor to a great and glorious feast with the Lamb of God in the eternal future.

You can have the feast, but if the family isn’t present, it’s hard to call it a Family Meal.  What will cause you to miss the Meal this Sunday?