Some of our best and maybe worst memories are centered around a table. There is the beauty of seeing family faces surrounding our tables. The stories we share. The memories.The latest news. How precious these times together are.

There are those times when disagreements erupt. Accusations. Eating in silence. Or then…eating alone. Let’s face it, we don’t always get it right!

But what remains is that table fellowship is very important. In the last several Bible studies I have done, table fellowship has been center stage. We saw Yeshua eating with sinners…feeding thousands…private meals with the disciples…great teaching moments and sweet fellowship…table fellowship.

When my Mama died, I could not bear to think I would be eating with my family and Daddy would be at his house eating alone. He just lived a mile up the road. So Baxter and I told him we thought it would be great if he would eat with us every night. For 14 years, Daddy came at 6:00pm for supper. The children would be home from the school day. Baxter would come home from work. And Daddy would come in with the daily news in the community. It was a precious season in our life, having him with us at supper. That was a lively supper table.

He had always told stories at our supper table. When we were children still at home, it might have been war stories from WWII…hunting stories…fishing stories. Our supper table was a happy time to share. Daddy loved eating and talking at the supper table. 

At the end of his life, he had several long hospital stays. In his last hospitalization, he just wasn’t eating well at all. So when I would go to spend the day, I’d take my lunch so we could eat together. He just ate better…together. 

One lunch time, Zan popped in from the cath lab…he’d been doing procedures all morning. Dad had started to eat his lunch and I was eating with him. Zan said, “What are ya’ll doing?” And I replied that we were having lunch. Zan got a salad from the canteen and came back. The three of us ate together. Our Daddy ate the best he had eaten in days. It was the sweetest gift. It was also the last time the three of us ate alone, together.

Eating together. It is more powerful than we know. It is more holy than we realize. Recently, I heard a Bible teacher say a Jewish woman had told her that the Jewish people see the table as a kind of altar. (I haven’t done all the research on that yet.) I think that’s true. It is a place God has provided one of our basic needs, food and drink. Eating together we are receiving from His hand. There is a certain intimacy of relationship that only happens at a table.

So in this season when we find ourselves at many “feast tables”, let’s remember. Remember the One who gives us all things…and the One  who came in flesh, walked this earth, shared table fellowship here, died, and rose from the dead…who now is preparing that beautiful feast on a banquet table we will all share in His Kingdom. Hallelujah!