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?
