We’re fast approaching the season where we gather with friends and family for much holiday feasting. The all-too-typical disposition in our society towards these gatherings is a sort of foreboding dread that so-and-so might bring up such-and-such. The American way, in this regard, is to have our holiday feasts with side dishes of resentments, offenses, rivalries, and envies hidden in plain sight.
Instead of dealing with root matters, we dance around delicate topics like expert break dancers. Avoid that topic of conversation. Don’t irritate Aunt Clarice. For pity’s sake, don’t mention that political issue.
God’s feast stands in stark contrast. This board sets the model for how we should arrange our feasting boards. God invites us here, despite the fact that He knows what you did last week. He knows all your grumbles, all your sneaking sins, all the worst things about you that nobody else knows.
He knows it all, and forgets it all.
But it gets even better. As one Catechism reminds us, He forgets our sin and our sinful nature: “I believe that God, because of Christ’s satisfaction, will no more remember my sins, nor my sinful nature.” It isn’t merely that he invites murderers, adulterers, liars, thieves, and blasphemers to His feast. We can wrap our heads around God forgiving those sins, even the fact that He won’t remember them against us. What’s staggering is that He views you not as a criminal whose crimes have been pardoned by the court (so keep an eye on the silverware); rather, He brings you in as His own child. He sees you as you are in fact: righteous. No spot. No stain. No crimes or criminal record to speak of.
This is a feast of God’s forgetfulness. So arrange your holiday feasts in imitation of His forgiveness towards you. Forgive and forget and then fellowship.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
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