Three Tables
A restaurant dining table, a hospice coffee table, and the communion table
I sat with five of our kids at a table for eight in the middle of a fairly swanky restaurant (at least for our crew). We were there to celebrate. The waitress came by and I explained we were waiting for two more. Our large table took up so much space that people in the surrounding booths kept glancing our way, curious as to what large event was taking place. Don’t worry—it’s just our family.
Then I saw them coming in from the far side of the large restaurant: my wife Maile and our son Cade, home from college for a long Easter weekend. The rest of the kids and I jumped to our feet, and he took turns hugging everyone. I know for a fact I was grinning from ear to ear. Someone watching probably thought he had returned from some long adventure in faraway lands. In truth, we hadn’t seen him in about a month.
The eight of us laughed and talked and ate food and told stories and laughed and ate some more. The table was dark, shining wood, and covered with emptying plates and glasses, arms reaching for this or that. “Bring those sweet potato fries over here for a minute,” and, “Are you going to eat the rest of that?”
One by one, we finished, leaning back, satisfied. Miracle of all miracles, I don’t think there was a single fight or argument. At one point the older four kids (ages 19 to 13) were engaged in lively conversation about the movies of their childhood, the two Littles listening with rapt attention, and Maile and I just looked at each other and smiled.
I leaned over towards her. “Isn’t this amazing?” I asked.
She nodded. Ever since Cade left for college, there’s nothing quite like these moments when we’re all back together.
I walked with Maile into the peaceful hospice care center. We were there to say goodbye, shown by our friend’s family into a room where she lay sleeping, slowly drifting away. Her breathing was gentle, her eyes still, and, watching her, I was reminded of watching a baby sleep, so mindful of her breathing, so aware of each inhale, each exhale.
I reached out and took the hand of our friend. Maile knelt down by the bed, put her forehead on the rail, and wept. I thought of Jesus weeping at the news that Lazarus had died.
See how she loved her!
We each took turns speaking quietly to our friend, tears choking our words. Finally, I said goodbye. I stood to go, but turned at the last minute for a final glance, the last time I would see her before we meet again in that far green country.
I was shocked—her hand was raised, her eyes still closed, and she fluttered her fingers at me in a last farewell.
Farewell, indeed, strong heart.
In a small living room area of the hospice, we sat with her family around a coffee table on which they ate their lunch, and we told stories, we cried, we laughed. The coffee table was fairly standard issue, covered in that unique spread that takeaway restaurant food creates: generic napkins and large paper bags and deli paper. It was a low table, and in order to eat from it you had to either sit on the floor or at the edge of the sofa, leaning forward.
Outside, a bright sun streamed through forsythia and the hazy green of budding oak and maple and sycamore.
I walked with Maile to the front of our church. We were there to serve communion.
Maile handed out the bread, and I had the privilege of serving the cup. And as I said the words, “The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation,” I took a small plastic cup from the table and handed them out.
Dozens of different people took part. Teenagers with mischievous looks in their eyes, and adults with weary shoulders. A new mom, holding her baby in front of her, and a woman hoping the next round of scans are clear.
Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me . . .
There were elderly people who have seen more than I can imagine, and young ones, the cup teetering in their fingers. There were people who seemed nervous by the whole thing and those who looked completely comfortable. There were those who grew up in churches that loved and supported them, and there were those who had gone decades without stepping foot inside, had been told at one point or another, for one reason or another, that they were not welcome.
. . . yet not my will, but yours be done.
My older children arrived in front of me, including my son home from college, and I served each one of them.
“The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”
I wanted to warn them about what they were drinking, tell them of the death and life in that cup, of the sorrow and celebration, that drinking it is drinking this life in all its fullness, all of its experience: the days you sign a new book contract, and the days you hold a stack of bills in your hands, fanned out like a hand of losing cards, wondering where the money will come from. The days you look into the fathomless depths of a new baby’s eyes, and the days you sit beside a friend in hospice and count their breaths.
All of those days are in that cup. Death and life. Sorrow and celebration. Despair and hope.
“The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”
Amen.
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“I wanted to warn them”...so so true. Jesus leads us to so many tables but I am thankful for the last one which makes all the other tables beautiful and bearable.
Just yes, Shawn. Beautiful.