Christmas Ham

I'm not really sure where the tradition started, but many of us will have ham around our Table this Christmas. At my house, we start the day with bacon and waffles. 

But the irony is not lost on me. It strikes me every year - and I laugh - at how commonplace it has become to celebrate the birth of our Jewish Savior with pork. 

Unclean!

There would have been neither bacon nor ham around the Table at the Last Supper. These will never become the elements that we pass in the plates or break at the front of the sanctuary. As faithful Jews, the disciples would never have imagined it. Pork? Really? 

Didn't Jesus send that legion of demons into a herd of pigs for a reason?

And yet, here we are, 2,000-some years later, with ham around our Table and bacon in our tummies. 

I laugh, but you know what? I love it. 

I love it because it reminds me that the Table Jesus sets is big enough for all of us. It's bigger than our rules. It's bigger than our regulations. It's bigger than our preferences. It's bigger than the Law. 

It's grace-big. 

It's mercy-big.

It's welcome-big.

It's love-big. 

And I love that. 

I love it because it means we don't have to be kosher - we don't have to get everything exactly right. We don't have to follow a bunch of strict rules. We don't have to have our lives perfect. We don't have to severely restrict and limit ourselves. 

We are free to be who we are, who God created us to be, who He wants us to be, who He needs us to be...who this world needs us to be. 

Every year, when we eat pork on Christmas, I think about the ways that Jesus - Immanuel - set us free for such even as this, to bring bacon to the manger and munch on ham while beholding our Jewish Savior. 

That is what Christ has done.