Feasting
I had a friend who used to ask “Are you excited to eat?” And recently I’ve realized I do get excited to eat, but more than that–I like feasting. And I like feasting with my friends.
My friend LauraBeth took the over-sized picture you see above. This still moment of time occurred after the brothers had just gotten done finishing the Amazing Race – Brother’s Edition. For me, this photo is worth a thousand words. Not only was it an end to a great day, but it also how I often picture the wedding feast of the Lamb–a long, never-ending table, filled with saints, enjoying great food and conversation with Christ being the center, the focus, the point of the meal. This picture is a reminder that heaven is happening all around us, here, on earth.
I get excited to eat with people. I love that food leads to conversations of life and love and everything in between. Think about it, some of your best conversations happen in restaurants and dinner tables. For reasons I do not fully understand, food tears down walls. Really good-tasting food lends itself to great memories. We even take photos and Instagram that moment. That’s where the photo above came from. Although sometimes it’s the food that we remember, more often it’s the people you are eating with or the conversation you had over that meal that makes it photo/memory worthy.
The question is–what are you eating? What is it that you are consuming? How are the conversations? Are they surface or do they have subsistence? We instinctively crave a deeper connection. This connection happens in Christ. It happens when he is the center, the focus, the point of the meal. On the night he was betrayed, Christ ate with his disciples. As they broke the bread and passed it along the table, Christ talked in deep mystery’s they would not understand until later. Because of this ordinary moment around a table and an analogy about bread, months and years later as they broke bread and they drank the wine around their own dinner tables–a revelation of Christ happened and continues to happen today.
Again I ask, are you merely eating or are you feasting?
There’s a time for both and too much of one and not enough of the other will take a toil on one’s spirit.
May the revelation of Christ be given to you as eat in restaurants and at dinner tables.
He is all and in all.