Come To The Table and Feast

Hello, my dear friends! I know it has been a couple of weeks since you heard from me. However, I will explain what has been happening in my life over the next few weeks.  This week my husband, Dave, a.k.a. Hubs agreed to be my guest blogger and share his heart about Easter. I have always appreciated the fact my husband thinks about spiritual things in a totally different way than I do because he teaches me new insights about the Word of God. This week was no different. Dave always makes me think outside my box and challenges me in a good way.  This week is no different.  This week you are invited to come to the table and feast!

Come to the Table and Feast

This week is Easter week, so I should legitimately be writing about Easter-y things. Don’t worry. I’ll get there, but the path may wind a little as I try to put a few puzzle pieces together. It’s no secret I love good food. I enjoy cooking, eating and sharing food with family and friends. I also appreciate watching television shows about food and finding new techniques and recipes to try. My wife calls me a “Foodie.”  In one of my alternate lives, I would probably have been a celebrity chef. Maybe that’s going a little too far, but you get the point.  Today, I would like to invite you to come to the table and feast!

In all my adventures with food, despite my delusions of grandeur, I can’t honestly say I ever prepared a perfect meal. And while many friendships have developed around the dinner table, I can’t think of one where the content of the meal itself held any true, lasting importance.  Nonetheless, when the Bible talks about food, I’m naturally interested. And while I don’t drink a lot of wine, I find that fascinating as well.

A Celebratory Feast

In the book of Isaiah, the prophet praises God for giving refuge to His people and rendering His enemies powerless. There’s one particular passage that looks forward to a celebratory feast:

“On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine — the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.”  Isaiah 25:6-8

The Significance of the Feast

Along with this meal, whether real or symbolic, comes the final healing for division and hatred, injustice, shame, and even death itself. Sounds like a great reason to throw a party! Hang on to that “He will swallow up death forever” thing for a minute. Fast forward to the New Testament, where the apostle Paul talks about the significance of Christ’s resurrection and the day when God’s enemies will all be defeated. Even death will come to an end:

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.  1 Corinthians 15:25-26

In the creeds we recite in many of our churches, we proclaim when Jesus rose from the dead (see, we’re getting back to Easter!), He took his seat at the right hand of God. Paul didn’t miss the connection between Christ’s resurrection and what David wrote in the Psalms because the Resurrection was the beginning of the end for the enemies of God.

“The Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” – Psalm 110:1

The Invitation Still Stands

As Christians living here between the Resurrection and the final banquet, we have another meal to share, one given to us by Jesus at the Last Supper. When Jesus blessed and broke the bread, he said: “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” When he passed the cup, he said: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” He reminded his disciples and all of us why he was willing to endure the suffering and humiliation he would go through on the cross.  It has been over two thousand years, but the invitation still remains the same. Jesus invites us all to come to the table and feast.

Our Passover

As I was working on this post, I remembered the words to a short chorus we sang before communion in a group I was involved in during college.  You don’t need to know how long ago that was, but I would have written this on a typewriter. The chorus was simply this, sung in a round:

“Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.”

At the time, I didn’t know it was a quote from 1 Corinthians 5, or that it was the first line of a song/chant called the “Pascha Nostrum,” which is just Latin for “Our Passover.” It has been used before communion at Easter since late medieval times. It’s all Scripture from 1 Corinthians and Romans, and songs are a great way to teach both Scripture and theology:

Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;
therefore let us keep the feast,

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia.

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again;
death no longer has dominion over him.

The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all;
but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So also consider yourselves dead to sin,
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia.

Christ has been raised from the dead,
the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since by a man came death,
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.

Jesus Invites Everyone

Christ followers have different traditions and different viewpoints when it comes to the nature of Holy Communion and how to celebrate it. But when we do, communion can affect us both inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly, it is a source of remembrance and renewal. Outwardly, it is a profound declaration that Jesus is the perfect Passover Lamb who ended Adam’s curse and defeated the reign of sin and death over us. Jesus died and rose again and Easter is the celebration and reminder we are all invited to come to the table and feast on mercy, grace, forgiveness and His love. Share on XJesus died and rose again and Easter is the celebration and reminder we are all invited to come to the table and feast on mercy, grace, forgiveness and His love.