A Bigger Table

As my wife, Danielle, and I prepared to bring our youngest daughter, Katie, home from China this past March, we realized we would need a bigger table.  We had gone beyond the two kids that you can report to strangers without raising any eyebrows.

A 2007 Gallup poll showed that only one percent of Americans say it's ideal for a family to have no children, and only three percent say one child is ideal.  That number jumps up to 52% that say two children is ideal.  Three kids?  Only 25% agree with going that high.  So if you are thinking higher than that, four or more children, guess what?  You have eight out of ten Americans saying you're plum crazy.  Only five percent of Americans think four children is "ideal"... and only two percent won't blink when you say five or more.

And that fits our experience, as well.  People had no problem when we had two kids; even with three, if they heard the story about the blessedly unpredictable way we received Evan into our home, three was okay.  But let's see the looks on your faces when I tell you the target Danielle and I shared (or rather, she initiated, and I accepted) from the very beginning of our relationship: five children.

And as it so happens, odds are against any of those five of our children being biologically ours.  We are a family built by adoption.

So what does that have to do with today, with this communion table?  The NLT version of Ephesians 1:5 says "God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure."  There was only one Son who was begotten by God the Father--all the rest of us were adopted, through the blood of that one begotten Son.  God always planned on having a big family; He didn't care if anyone blinked.  And that huge family would be built by adoption.

So when another sinner is saved, the angels rejoice.  And if there are smart-aleck angels, one of them looks at the Father and says, "You're gonna need a bigger table."  The Lord in heaven laughs, and says, “That's a good problem to have—I think we'll be fine.”

For this is what the Lord himself said, and I pass it on to you just as I received it. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."  In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant between God and you, sealed by the shedding of my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it."  For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until Jesus comes again.