The Empty Glass at the Engagement Dinner

The table will be long because they always put two together, and the platters go down the middle, and Sami has already worked out that he will be somewhere in the second third with his aunts on one side.

Saturday. His cousin's engagement dinner. Forty people, most of them related to him, in a hall behind a restaurant with those lamps that hang too low.

He is not worried about wanting it. He would like that understood. He has been at tables like this before and got through it, and he expects to get through this one. What he cannot stop thinking about is the glass.

Because there will be a glass in front of him. There is always a glass in front of him. And through the evening the level in everybody else's will go down and come back up and go down, and his will simply stand there, full, at the same height, for four hours, in the middle of a table of people who have known him since he was six.

Somebody will notice. Somebody always notices. It will not be unkind. It will be worse than unkind, it will be gentle: a hand on his shoulder, a lowered voice, are you all right, and then a look between two aunts at the far end that he will catch and will think about for a week.

He has rehearsed nine versions of what to say. All nine are too long.

Wednesday. Three days.

You know that glass. It might be a cup at a christening, a bottle passed down a table at Sunday lunch, a champagne flute at a reception. It is not the drink. It is the visibility of not taking it, in front of the specific people who have a whole history of you.

You are held by the hand at that table, and you were never going to be watched from across the room by a God who stayed in His seat. Isaiah says I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, which is a posture of contact and not of supervision; that is exactly what stands written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a fact in a hall behind a restaurant with the lamps hanging too low.

I will hold thy right hand

Let me name the weight first, because it is not the weight anybody assumes.

Nobody at that table is going to hand you anything you cannot refuse. The weight is being seen refusing. It is the four hours of a full glass making a statement you did not write and cannot edit, to forty people who will each draw their own conclusion, and you will never know which conclusion any of them drew. That is the actual thing keeping you awake on a Wednesday. Not appetite. Exposure.

So here is the verse, and I want you to feel how physical it is.

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.Isaiah 41:13

Hold thy right hand. Not watch you. Not think well of you from a distance. Hold the hand, which is contact, and specifically the right hand, which in that world is the working hand, the eating hand, the hand you greet with. It is the hand that is busiest at a table.

You are held by the hand and you were never merely observed, and the holding is on the hand that is doing everything. That is what stands written in Isaiah 41, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that contact real at a long table between two aunts.

And notice the order in the sentence. He holds the hand saying unto thee, Fear not. The holding comes first and the words come while it is happening. Most people expect the reassurance and then, if it works, the strength. God does it the other way round: contact first, and the instruction is spoken from inside the contact. Which means fear not is not being shouted across a room at you. It is being said quietly by somebody already holding on.

You are being spoken to from inside the holding, and you were never being coached from the side of the room. Scripture puts the holding before the saying, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps that order intact on a Saturday evening.

And read what comes just before it, because it is the strangest kindness in the passage. Fear not, thou worm Jacob. He uses the smallest word available. Not to insult him, but because the sentence continues: I will help thee. He does not tell Jacob he is stronger than he thinks. He names the smallness honestly and then puts Himself on the other end of it, and the whole weight is transferred to the helper rather than to the helped.

You are helped by somebody who never needed you to be larger first, and you were never asked to talk yourself into being fine. The written word names the smallness and answers it with I will help thee, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that arrangement usable by a man who has rehearsed nine explanations and knows all nine are too long.

One plain thing, said in every article on this site and meant here: you owe nobody at that table an explanation. Not the aunt with the lowered voice, not the cousin, nobody. And if the friend who knows, a doctor, a counselor, or a room with a circle of chairs is what gets you to Saturday and home again, use it, because it is God's kindness with a face on it. And you may leave. At any hour. Leaving early is not a failure, it has never been one, and nobody in that hall gets a vote.