This one needs almost no guesswork to define why two musical people decided to write “Come to the Table”, a song that was published in 1991. The 48-year-old Claire Cloninger and 35-year-old Marty Nystrom were the collaborators who knew each other through a music-publishing company, and decided that a communion song for churches was needed. They evidently thought the experience for believers should feel personal, as if the worshipped person Himself were inviting the meal’s guests into a special place of remembrance. How often has a group of believers prayed that God’s Spirit would join them as they sing, pray, study, and eat together? What if this invitation-giving and receiving relationship were instead reversed? After all, He initiated this meal, and has provided its main ingredients.
It was a project for Integrity Music that had Claire and Marty teaming up to write something pretty simple, yet meaningful, for Lord’s Supper participants. That relationship was crucial, since the Seattle, Washington native Marty, and the Lafayette, Louisiana-born Claire might otherwise never have crossed each other’s paths, though both of their Christian faith backgrounds had some common threads. Claire’s musical and Christian upbringing helped spawn her career as an author and songwriter, with several awards from the Gospel Music Association to her credit. Marty’s musical directorship in New York (Christ for the Nations) and then as song developer for Integrity were likewise the result of Christian parents and a love for music that pushed him toward a university education in that area. Both Claire and Marty must have spent many years taking part in communion in one church or another before 1990, and yet something pushed them to think a new song was a good idea for this part of worship. Perhaps it was just a sense that something fresh was needed, an addition to the scores of songs and hymns already in use to accompany the eucharist. No other circumstances are known, but the song contains no words or phrases that seem mysterious, requiring further explanation. Claire and Marty did think it was the ‘Lord’s invitation’ that brings believers to that point of a worship service. We might often think of that phrase when someone is coaxing a non-believer to take the step in a life-commitment to Him. But, perhaps it’s more effective to think of it in the way that Claire and Marty used it. Who would turn down an invitation to a meal when hunger pangs are making the insides growl, after all?
Claire Cloninger and Marty Nystrom had a simple mission in 1991. Craft a song that draws the believer toward eating a unique meal, one that I need to sustain me each week. It doesn’t have to complicate or embellish the story beyond what I have already heard, but I do relish knowing that He’s the host. He’s made all the arrangements, and has provided all that’s on the table to make me salivate in anticipation. That happens because no matter how often I eat this meal and enjoy it among other believers, I have yet to attend the feast with Him in Eternity. I’m getting a foretaste, for now. Someday, I’ll see the nail-scarred hands in person that Claire and Marty remind me has issued the invitation to His table. You and I can spend a lifetime working up an appetite for that meal.
See here for information about the song: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-come-to-the-table
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