When the Glasses Go Up

The toasts are after the main course and before the dessert, which means somewhere around a quarter past nine, and Dov has worked this out from the running order taped inside the kitchen door.

His nephew is getting married. The boy has been at his table every week since he was born. There will be a hundred and forty people, three speeches, and then the moment: the best man says a name, and a hundred and forty glasses go up at once, all the way up, and are held there, and the whole room looks at each other over the top of them.

He is not worried about the evening. He has done the evening. He is worried about ninety seconds.

Because in ninety seconds a room does one thing together, and everybody in it can see everybody else, and what is in your hand is suddenly the most visible object at the table. And this is a family wedding, so half the people who will be looking at him have known him for fifty years, and a good number of them remember precisely how he used to be at weddings.

He has been through the options in his head. Hold the glass low. Be in the bathroom at quarter past nine. Take the smallest possible sip of something and put it down. He has rejected all three and has not found a fourth.

It is the day before.

You know that ninety seconds. It might be a toast, a communion cup, a round bought for the table, a moment where the whole room does one thing at one time and you are visibly not doing it. It is not endurance. It is exposure, concentrated into a minute and a half.

You are standing in a moment God is already in, and you were never going to be the only one on His side of that room. Three men in Daniel answered a public moment by saying our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and they said it without arguing their case first; that is exactly what stands written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that steadiness available at a quarter past nine at a wedding.

Our God whom we serve is able

Let me name what is really happening in that ninety seconds, because it is not about a drink at all.

It is a public moment of belonging. That is what a toast is. A room agrees on something at the same instant and shows each other that they agree by doing the same thing with their hands. And what you are afraid of is not that you will want what is in the glass. It is that in a moment designed to show belonging, you will be seen to be doing something different, at your own nephew's wedding, in front of people who have known you since you were a boy.

So let me take you to three men who were given a public moment and ninety seconds to decide.

If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods.Daniel 3:17-18

Look at what they do not do. They do not explain themselves. They do not give the king a reasoned account of their position. They do not appeal for an exemption, and they do not make a speech about how hard this is for them. The whole answer is two sentences and neither of them is a defense.

You are not required to make a case, and you were never obliged to explain a glass to a room. That is what stands written in Daniel 3, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the pressure of self justification off a man at a table of a hundred and forty people.

And then the strange, magnificent second half: but if not. They say God is able to deliver them, and then, without any drop in confidence, they say that even if He does not, nothing changes. That is not a hedge. It is the opposite of a hedge. It is a statement that their position never rested on the outcome in the first place, which is precisely what makes it unshakeable.

You are standing on something that does not depend on how the evening goes, and you were never as exposed as ninety seconds makes you feel. Scripture puts but if not right beside our God is able, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man's footing independent of what a room thinks at quarter past nine.

And here is what I want you to carry into it. Nothing they refused was a refusal to be present. They were in the room. They were at the assembly. They stood on that plain with everybody else and the only thing they did differently was one specific act. Being there was never in question and it never became a compromise.

You are able to be entirely present and do one thing differently, and you were never being asked to choose between the room and your own feet. The written word has them standing on the plain with everybody, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes full presence and one difference the same posture rather than opposite ones.

And now the plain thing this site says every time. Your glass is your business and nobody at that wedding is owed a word about it. Fill it with water and raise it as high as anybody, because a toast is a blessing spoken over two people and water carries a blessing perfectly well. And if the friend who knows, the doctor, the counselor, the room with the circle of chairs is what makes tomorrow possible, use it, because that is God's kindness with a face on it and it is not a lesser road.