Is there an empty chair in your home this year? Perhaps around the dining table? Not everyone will make it to the family table this Christmas.
Or perhaps it’s not a chair but a feeling. Are you in a season when you feel overlooked, as though nobody would notice if you weren’t there?
Today we read how God told Moses to build a table. It was small enough to carry, covered in gold, and meant to hold bread before Him at all times. This table invites each of us to enjoy fellowship with God.
“Make a table of acacia wood—two cubits long, a cubit wide and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold and make a gold moulding around it. Also make around it a rim a handbreadth wide and put a gold moulding on the rim. Make four gold rings for the table and fasten them to the four corners, where the four legs are. The rings are to be close to the rim to hold the poles used in carrying the table. Make the poles of acacia wood, overlay them with gold and carry the table with them. And make its plates and dishes of pure gold, as well as its pitchers and bowls for the pouring out of offerings. Put the bread of the Presence on this table to be before me at all times.” (Exodus 25 v 23-30)
Three words for around the table
1. Remembered
In Leviticus 24 v 5-9 we are told there were twelve loaves of the bread of the Presence, laid out before God at all times. There were twelve tribes of Israel. God kept every tribe in His sight continually and never forgot any.
2. Welcomed
The bread shows that God wants to share a meal with His people. He is to be feared, but He also wants to be with you, at home with you, welcomed in.
3. Fulfilled
Nowhere is this better fulfilled than in Christ. Here is the beautiful thought: the bread that once lay before God’s face came down to us in Jesus, the bread of life. More than this, only the priests of old could approach the bread on the table, but now the table is open to everyone.
Whatever chair sits empty in your life this year, one place will never be taken, because in Christ there’s always a place for you at the table.
