Back on the farm I grew up on in Minnesota, the room that was most important to our house was the kitchen. It was the room we spent a lot of time in. Of course, it was where the wonderful meats were prepared, beef and pork roasts with mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken and baked potatoes with home grown sweet corn. And also with every meal there were platefuls of cookies, fresh baked rolls with homemade raspberry or strawberry jam, carrots, radishes, and maybe even green onions from the garden.
Not only was the kitchen the place where food was prepared and eaten, it was much more than that. It was the nerve center of an active farming operation. Chilled labs and new born little pigs were brought in to be wrapped in a blanket, then placed in boxes and set on the lid of the oven to warm them to life. The distributor cap from a balky Farmall “H” tractor was brought also to dry the moisture over a top burner on the stove, so that it would conduct the spark correctly and be able to make the “H” cough to life for the day’s work. Produce from the garden was brought in to be processed and canned or frozen for future meals. The farm kitchen was a busy active, alive place each day that the farm’s work was done.
But the farm kitchen was even more. It was the table where Dad and I would play a game of cribbage. It was the table we sat at while we listened to “Gunsmoke” on the radio on Saturday night and then continued to tune in to hear the Minnesota Gopher basketball team join in another Big 10 contest. It was also where our good friends, the Berklands sat when they came to visit and then join in a few games of “500”, followed by one of those lunches that my Mother always seemed to be able to make appear whenever company dropped over. The kitchen was truly a place you could sit with good friends, because we both were most at home there, most ourselves in this unpretentious, yet hospitable environment. The farm kitchen was truly a wonderful place.
Sometimes I think that when Jesus spoke about preparing a place for us, a house with many rooms, the room that will be mine will be a farm kitchen. There once more I will be able to join the wonderful company of those who find great joy in gathering around a table with a meal prepared. The conversation will be filled with joy and happiness. The room will hum with life and the spirit of creativity and purpose that oversaw the great productive farm called earth will be everywhere present. Good friends will still make their way to our table and our talk will be filled with wondrous conversations like, “thank God that he gave me those last 20 years of sobriety.” Or, “thank God for our Down’s Syndrome son who brought us a taste of love, such as we would have never known without him.” Conversations like, “Now, God, I understand why you had a different plan for my life than I wanted to live.” For in this farm kitchen we will be able to put behind us the mirror in which we only saw dimly, for now we will see face to face. We put behind us only knowing in part, for now we know fully because of the God who has fully known us from the beginning. We have become whole and complete in this room that has been prepared for us, this farm kitchen in the mansion God is preparing.
And so today we can take a peek in through this window of wonder at the farm kitchen that will be ours in the age to come. We can hear the voices of laugher and joy that symbolizes good fellowship, great happiness and fulfillment of purpose. And we can picture ourselves sitting at that table toasting the life and hope and peace God will bring us safely home to enjoy. We see the farm kitchen that is yet to be full of the wonder of God’s never failing love. We await the day with wonder and awe when we join with the others who have gone before us and wait patiently for the day we will take our place at the table in the farm kitchen God is preparing for us. What a day it will be! What wonder yet to behold!
