| The Restaurant |
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I ate lunch this week with about 15 people, but it’s not like we intended to share a meal together. You see, we all happened to be eating at the same time in a restaurant. Fate, it seemed, drew us together for a chance meeting on a cold day. In the booth behind me sat a retired older couple; two life long friends sharing a quiet meal together. Across the isle sat a group of farmers seeking warmth and a hot meal on a frigid winter day. Still dressed in cover‑all’s these hard working men, who earlier had braved minus 25 degree wind chills, were warmed for a moment by each others company. Two young mothers and their babies sat in the booth next to the farmers, their children wrapped in blankets to shelter them from the cold winter wind. They talked about 2 a.m. feedings and sleepless nights. They lamented over the cost of baby food and doctor visits. And a young man sat beside me who was either still in high school or just entering college. So young, I thought, to be sitting in a booth alone. I noticed him glancing down often, as if to read a book. It was the Bible. How strange, I thought, for this young man to be reading a Bible and me in my booth to be reading a commentary on the gospel of John. For a few brief moments we took a break from the world in our lunch time oasis, but soon we would return to face the challenges of failing health, the harshness of winter, rising doctor bills, school exams, and a hurting world. And as I looked upon these momentary comrades of mine, I marveled at the many expressions of love being demonstrated amongst hamburgers and happy meals. Some would say that chance or fate brought us together that day. But as a follower of Christ I know that the hand of God was involved to create this living example of what is written in scripture. Jesus mentions it in John 13:35, “If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples”. And what I saw the other day in the restaurant is a small example of that; the love between husband and wife, the love between men of kindred spirit, the love between a mother and child, and the love of a man for his God. All of us who ate together may live in this world, but our actions displayed that we are not a part of this world. The example in the restaurant raises a valid question; if we demonstrate no love for one other, what will a watching world think? What must Jesus think as we argue with one another, promote our own agenda’s, gossip, slander, and ridicule those that call Him their Savior? How does Jesus feel as we engage in Christian civil war? Jesus’ desire is that His church become an oasis to a thirsty and hungry world; to be a place where, on any given day, a group of strangers could assemble together and find comfort and shelter from the storms of the world; a place where we can see the love between husband and wife, between men of kindred spirit, between mother and child, and between a man and his God. So, what kind of place is your church? Pastor Greg |
