Just One Word- Host

  Host

Lora Parsons

The Ashland Beacon

Not too long ago at church, we were singing a song I love by Kari Jobe called “Holy Spirit.”  It’s a song about welcoming the Holy Spirit and it contains a line that says:  “No thing can compare; You’re our living hope.”  This song was produced in 2014–11 years ago now.  For exactly 11 of those 11 years, I’ve been singing it wrong.  I’ve thought all this time that it said “No thing can compare; You’re our living HOST.”

Since I saw those lyrics on our screen and realized my mistake, I’ve been thinking about that word “host.”  One of its meanings has to do with allowing someone into your home and treating them with honor, gifting them with time and all the best you have to offer in that moment.  When we invite someone in, we serve them first.  They get the best seat in the house.  We make special food usually and clean up the place a little more than we might just for ourselves.  We put our best foot forward in order to make them feel special, wanted, loved, and appreciated.  And, to some degree these are the things we do when we invite Jesus into our time and space.  When we spend time with Him in prayer, for instance, we try to lay aside distractions and focus on just being in that moment with Him.  We try to honor who He is and what He’s done for us by spending time with Him in worship, intentionally setting aside moments that we dedicate to Him, efforts that share Him with others.  In a sense, we try to host Jesus—bring Him into our world and spend time with Him, setting a table before Him with the place settings of the best we have to offer—a cup of our returned love, a bowl of gratitude, a plate of mercy that we approach others with daily, as generously as He shared mercy with us.  We host Him moment by moment through our personal interactions with Him and through personal interactions with those around us.

But the song isn’t talking about us hosting Him.  My messed-up lyric says He’s OUR living host.  And I’m not meaning just the reverse of this previous scenario where we’re the guest of honor at a table He’s prepared for us, though that analogy would also work. He definitely has set before us a table now in this world that we don’t deserve to sit at, and He’s preparing one that we’ll get to sit at for all eternity in His presence.  But, when I sing those lyrics, none of that is what comes to mind.  Middle school science comes to mind here in regards to symbiotic relationships.  These are relationships between two living things that depend on one another.  One type of symbiotic relationship is called Mutualism where both species benefit from one another.  Bees, for example, gather pollen from flowers and flowers are then inadvertently pollinated by the bees.  Another one of those relationships is called Commensualism where one species benefits and the other is unharmed, like a bird that follows a herd of cows to eat the insects that the herd rustles up from the grass.  The birds benefit from the cattle, but the cattle are unchanged by the birds’ feasting.  The third type is called Parasitism where the benefiting species causes harm, sometimes even death, to the organism it’s benefiting from, like a tapeworm inside of a human, feeding from and depriving the host of critical nutrients it needs to thrive. This is what I thought the song was talking about.  The benefiting species relies on the HOST species in such a way that it could not thrive and sometimes even survive without the benefits it receives from the other living organism.  And, in getting what it needs from the host, the host becomes a living sacrifice.  The song goes on to say “Your presence, Lord.”  Those two ideas together—that Jesus is our living host followed by words describing His presence—I think those express beautifully the symbiotic relationship we should have with Him.  Nothing should matter more to us than Him, than being in constant communion and presence with Him.  He should be the very air we breathe, the life within us.  His presence daily, hourly, minute by minute, impacting every move we make, every decision we make, every word we speak…this should be our existence.  Words we speak should come from His breath in our lungs.  Steps we take should be His footprints we follow.  Decisions we make should only be through a mindset that follows His example of wisdom and mercy.  Every move should be in communion with our living host, us inseparable from Him. 

Where we end and He begins should be a blurred line that is indistinguishable.  While he is certainly our living hope for a future beyond this world as the song really says, I think I’ll keep singing it my wrong way, as a reminder of what my abiding in Him should look like.  He IS our living host and in His presence is where we find sustenance, strength, life.  It’s so much less about me hosting Him in my life and all about the love and mercy He displays by willingly hosting me.  He lets me come into His presence where the Lord of Hosts hosts even me.  Truly “nothing can compare; You’re our living host.  Your presence, Lord.”