Much preparation had to be done to make our downstairs suitable for the occasion. A menu was drawn up and food was prepared for serving. It was decided to use disposable plates and cups to minimise the washing up afterwards.
The party was a marvellous success. All the plans came together well - and so did the brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren.
The task of returning the house to its normal state wasn't so very onerous. And because we were keeping an eye on a neighbour's house, their bin and ours made the disposal of garbage easy.
And the "left-overs"? ... taken home by various family members for refrigeration and later use.
What do you do with your "left-overs"? Items of food shouldn't be left too long. But after that dress-making or carpentry project, after making Christmas or birthday presents, after planting as many lettuce seedlings the garden will fit... how good are you at determining what is really useful and worth keeping?
From time to time fabric shops will have a "remnant sale" - getting rid of those ends of rolls that are too small for most projects. Many a church fete has had a stall-full of items made from such remnants.
We live in an age of flea markets and trash and treasure sales. One person's trash may well be another's treasure.
The Old Testament develops the theme of God's remnant. Those who have remained faithful to him in adverse times when the rest of the nation has been all but destroyed - those are the ones through whom the people of God will be rebuilt.
With God there is no wastage. He is able to take the rejects and the left-overs. His purposes are not thwarted when all hope is gone. Even when it is clearly his judgement that has fallen, there is still hope. In the days before the Great Flood, we are told that "the Lord was pleased with Noah" (Gen. 5.8) - in the AV, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." And from that time on we read again and again that God has his faithful remnant - the "left-overs" through whom he will work his will in this world.
Sometimes the righteous remnant has been a number of people. In Isaiah 11, the focus is on one person. The tree is gone. Only the stump remains. Yet from that stump - from what the AV calls the "root of Jesse" - will come the promised King.
The Jewish people had been waiting for their King to come. In those days kings and priests were anointed with oil to show that they were set apart for the special work God had for them to do. Their word for "anointed" was Messiah. They were waiting, not for one more King, but for the Messiah, for God had promised that someone special would come in God's good time to redeem his people.
In Isaiah 11 he is described as "a shoot from the stump of Jesse" - called in GNB "a new king from the royal line of David". "The royal line of David is like a tree that has been cut down; but just as new branches sprout from a stump, so a new king will arise from among David's descendants."
What will it be like when the Root of Jesse is King? The Spirit of the Lord will be on him - "the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord - and he will delight in the fear of the Lord" (NIV) - "The spirit of the Lord will give him wisdom, and the knowledge and skill to rule his people. He will know the Lord's will and have reverence for him and find pleasure in obeying him" (GNB).
So the first difference will be in the kind of king who is coming. He will be so different from any other king they have ever had before. His rule will be marked by complete fairness - he will not be playing to his courtiers - not appearance, status, hearsay, but justice and integrity towards everyone, even to the poorest and neediest in his kingdom.
So peace will be the mark of his kingdom. The whole creation, thrown into a state of hostility by the Fall, will be transformed, brought back to what it was meant to be. Peace between wolf and sheep, between leopard and goat, between calf and lion, between cows and bears. "Little children will take care of them... Even a baby will not be harmed if it plays near a poisonous snake. On Zion, God's sacred hill, there will be nothing harmful or evil."
Of course, we don't yet live in that ideal world. But listen to what Paul says in Romans 8 - "All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his sons. For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth" (vv. 19-22).
Paul is saying that the whole physical world has been affected by the results of the human rejection of God - by the results of human sin. We don't (and can't!) live in a Garden of Eden any more. We hear the Lord saying to Adam, "... Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you. It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants. You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed" (Gen.3.17ff).
And we too are waiting for that final restoration in which there will be perfect peace, justice and harmony - for these are the marks of the King!
We live in the days of fulfilment and affirm that Jesus is that promised King. He came to bring in that eternal Kingdom.
"The right time has come and the Kingdom of God is near," he declared. "Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News!" (Mk. 1. 15)
In the final count there is only one faithful one, only one without sin. The rest of us are sinners. Jesus came as that "shoot from the stump of Jesse". Calling people into the Kingdom means calling them to repent and to believe the Good News of what he himself has done in dying for our sins.
Jesus has brought the Kingdom into this world, but we do not see it here in its fullness. This world continues as a mix of good and bad. And even Kingdom people - those who are new creatures in Christ - do not yet fully express the passing of all the old and the coming of all the new.
The faithful remnant came to focus on one person, Jesus Christ. From that one person there stretches out the whole Kingdom of God.
Do you think of yourself as a reject or a left-over? With God there is no wastage. Finally, the hope of the world focuses on one person, Jesus Christ. Finally, the measure of your life is bound up with your response to the one whom Isaiah prophetically described as "the Root of Jesse''.
Listen to what Jesus said in John 15 - "I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will be clean and bear more fruit. Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself; it can do so only if it remains in the vine. In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me" (vv. 1-4).
In Hampton Court near London, there is a Great Vine. It was planted in 1768 and has a trunk of over 30 cm in diameter. Some of the branches are 60 metres long. Because of skilful cutting and pruning, the vine produces 500 to 600 bunches of grapes each year. Even though some of the smaller branches are 60 metres from the main stem, they bear much fruit because they are joined to the vine and allow the life of the vine to flow through them.
Jesus is King. We are not flotsam and jetsam, but his people - the means by which his life-giving, redeeming and renewing power can reach out into this world. Are you linked to the vine available to him for the purposes of his Kingdom?
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