Preparing for a Feast

Good morning all,

Today is preparation day for our annual Cajun Christmas Feast at Bryantsville. I am not sure what I like better, cooking or eating. The real truth is along the lines of both equally! As I have sat here this morning having quiet time and praying the meal keeps interrupting my thoughts as I think about all of the things I need to do, but those thoughts have led to other, more spiritually productive, thoughts that I wanted to share real quick this morning.

We joke at Bryantsville about everything we do seeming to involve food; and while we say that in jest, there is a great deal of truth to it. The thought I had this morning is that we really are not all that much different than Jesus. As we read the Gospels, time and again we find Jesus and the disciples doing something that involves food. Every time we have Holy Communion we talk about looking to the time when Christ returns and we feast at His heavenly banquet table. When we eat at church, especially big feasts like this one, it serves as a reminder to us of Christ and the hope we have of His imminent return.

Tomorrow night we will feast on lots of yummy food, but it pales in comparison to the feast we will share with Jesus upon His return; but no good feast happens without a lot of preparation. Today I begin all of the preparations so I can focus on cooking tomorrow, but the same holds true for Christ's heavenly banquet table. The day is coming when we will dine with Him at the feast He has prepared, but in the meantime we have a lot of preparation to do. Advent is a season of preparation, so it is appropriate that we focus on this. While the Cajun feast involves the preparation of food, the heavenly banquet table involves the preparation of our hearts.

We must do the work of spending time with God in worship, fellowship, prayer, service and scripture to be prepared for His return feast. When we make those preparations God does the incredible work of transforming our hearts from something Grinchish to something that is bursting with joy and hope and is ready to sit at a table with Christ.

In the days to come we are all going to find ourselves at some point preparing a feast, be it Cajun feasts or Christmas dinners, or Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, as we do let us all allow that to be a reminder to us to make sure we are doing the work of preparing our hearts for the greatest banquet of all.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron