Opening to Divine Life

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning....In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it (or overcome it).

No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known.(John 1)

For in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head of over every power and authority (Col. 2:9).

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation...for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Col.1:15; 19). 

And the Word was made flesh, and pitched His tent among us (Jn. 1).

The culmination of Matthew's conversion story was that Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house (Matt. 9), along with publicans and sinners "who came to the table with Jesus and His disciples."  

Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone will open to me, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:10).  He sits at our table and we sit at His.  Sometimes we are the host; sometimes He is the Host.  The end of Revelation pictures us seated at the wedding banquet of the Lamb, when He is finally united with His Bride, the Church.  The sinners and publicans, including Matthew, seated at table with Jesus and His disciples is the beginning of that eternal celebration and feast.

To the Greeks, the Logos (Word) was how God manifested Himself to the world.  From the Logos, we know Who God is, we know what He thinks.  And here is the Eternal Word, the exact image of the invisible God, seated at table -- eating -- with sinners.  Now we know that we cannot eat with our enemies; we sit at table with our family and friends.  It is amazing that God, the Eternal God, wants to come to our house, to sit at our table, and to eat with us. Indeed, He calls us His family and His friends.  After the Resurrection, Jesus told Mary Magdalene to go tell His "brothers": "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Somehow, the Rising of Jesus has made us His family, and now His God is our God; His Father is our Father. John says that no one has ever seen God, but God the Son has made Him known. If we are seated at His table, we are seated at the table with the Father, and we know Him.  If Jesus is seated at our table, surely it is to reveal to us the Face of God, that we might know Him as Jesus knows Him. 

Jesus has come in the flesh that we might not be afraid to open the door to God, to allow Him to enter our homes and to eat with us.  And the further away from Him we are, the more He goes in search of us.  He does not ask us to be worthy; He only asks that we open to door to Him.