You Are Invited to Dinner
And what a dinner it will be! I’m getting excited! Let’s
listen to the description of this homecoming dinner that you and I are invited
to–this celebration- in the Bible. Here
is how it is described in the Bible. “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 the disgrace of His people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:6-8)
This is a feast at the end of history, the ultimate wedding
celebration-feast! (Rev. 19) Jesus
mentions this dinner or feast when He says:
“Many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places
at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 8:11) Can you imagine it- feasting not just on
physical food, but also on the spiritual – feasting with people from every
generation – people who lived thousands of years ago – and of course feasting
in Gods’ presence?
Jesus has been called the real “Master of the Feast.” And why is this? Scripture calls the first of Jesus’ miracles
a “sign,” or a signifier of what Jesus’ ministry would be about. Jesus’ first
miracle happened at a neighbors’ wedding reception where the wine had run out too
soon. The hosts of the party were embarrassed that now the guests would have no
more wine to enjoy. So because his mother Mary nagged him, Jesus turned several
large jugs of water into very fine wine.
And the party kept on going! (John 2:1-11) If this first miracle is a “sign” of what
Jesus is about, as Scripture says, it seems to say that Jesus is about bringing
joy and bringing us all back together for a communal dinner and wine!
Jesus too, pictures Himself and the salvation He brings, as
a feast. He tells us, “I am the Bread”.
(John 6:35) We can feast on Him. Jesus
asked His followers to remember Him until He returns by eating a meal of bread
and wine. The meal is called the “Lord’s supper” or “Communion” or the
“Eucharist”. The bread is His body that was broken for us and the wine is His
blood that was shed for us. When we eat
this feast we show our Lords’ death until he returns.
Jesus’ salvation has been called a feast. It is not only a fact that we can believe but
we can feel it and taste it and be nourished by it also! The words in Scripture
call us to “taste and see” that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34:8) The
Psalmist writes: “How sweet are your Words to my taste, sweeter than honey to
my mouth!” (Psalm 119:108) There is a difference between just believing
that honey is sweet and tasting it and enjoying it. And there is a difference
between believing in Jesus’ love intellectually and allowing His love to become
real down in our heart.
Like Christ we also have a hidden spiritual dinner (John
4:32) that is ours to feed on, - this new life in the Spirit that we have when
we follow Christ. Without Christ it is
normal for us humans to be driven by anger and fear and to feel that our lives
are sometimes out of control. But when
we believe in our hearts and digest the truths into our lives that God is in
control and that He can take care of our problems, then we are strengthened and
have a new sense of peace.
It is also normal for
us to believe that we are hopefully accepted by God because we are good law
abiding citizens and we obey and go to church, etc. But the gospel teaches us that we aren’t accepted
by God because we obey or do good, but we obey and do good because we are
accepted by God through Christ. Christ doesn’t love us because we are
beautiful, but we become beautiful because of Christ’s love. “We love God because He first loved us,” (1
John 4:19) His amazing love changes us and His Spirit nudges us into the truth
of his love.
Also Jesus tells a
parable or story about a wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14) and tells us that
the kingdom of God
Jesus’ story ends with the king coming to his wedding feast
and noticing that one of the guests isn’t wearing a “wedding coat”. The king has this guest ushered out of the
party since he is not dressed appropriately, or he might have even been naked.
And then Jesus’ parable ends with these words: “For many are invited, but few
are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14) What does this parable mean?
Bible scholars
believe that it may have been the custom back then for the host of a wedding
party to provide the guests with wedding coats, particularly if the guests came
in directly from the dirty streets. The wedding coat speaks of the
righteousness that God, the gracious host, provides for all who accept his
dinner invitation. God invites
undeserving people to His sumptuous feast, and then provides the righteousness
(clean clothes) that the invitation demands. And of course, Jesus is that
righteousness. If we do not allow Him to
clean us up – if we do not trust Him and allow Him to work in our lives and
cover us – then we won’t fit into that ultimate party feast!
Jesus’ parable teaches that we must be clothed correctly to
join the feast. Evidently our normal
clothes aren’t good enough – we aren’t good enough on our own. A worldly life of sensual pleasure doesn’t
make it and the religious life of ethical strictness doesn’t either. Both are spiritual dead ends! But to accept the gift of the wedding coat
and to live a life based on Jesus’ salvation will bring us finally to the
ultimate feast at the end of history. We
can have a foretaste of that future salvation now – while on earth we get
little glimpses here and there – but they are only a foretaste of what is to
come!
Many ideas and quotes in this blog are taken from Timothy
Kellers’ book The Prodigal God , Chapter 7 “The Feast of the Father” pp.
118-149.
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