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THE FEAST

“In this mountain the Lord of hosts shall prepare for all people a feast of choice pieces and fat things, and a feast of wines aged on the lees – a banquet of rich food full of marrow, and refined wines aged on the lees.”

Isaiah 25:6

The Hebrew wording in this scripture emphasizes that the fine wine of this feast has aged on the lees.  Lees is the naturally occurring sediment of dead yeast cells and grape particles that develop over the course of the fermentation process.  After fermentation, depending on the grape varietal, the winemaker will allow the wine to remain on the lees as it ages to preserve and enhance the wine’s aromas and flavors. 

Aging on the lees is a winemaking technique that can impart beautiful layers of complexity, and strength of character.  Certain wines will taste weak or hollow and indistinct if filtered before they’ve had time to mature on the lees.

However, wine can become unpalatable if it ages too long on the lees – like a tea that becomes bitter when over-steeped.  Therefore, when the winemaker has determined that a wine has had sufficient time on the lees, it is subjected to a purification process called racking or fining.  In ancient times the fining process was done by pouring the wine from vessel to vessel, allowing time for the lees to settle between pours, to filter out the lees. 

God, through the prophets, speaks to this technique allegorically.  Just as maturing on the lees serves to preserve the flavor of a wine, so too maturing in one’s place serves to preserve the identity of a people group (for God’s people this was a call to mature in the way and teachings of God). 

However, in Jeremiah 48:11, the Moabites illustrate what can happen to a society if left “too long on the lees”.  Living prosperously within uncontested borders, the people of Moab develop unfavorable characteristics such as pride, complacency, and indifference toward God. 

Similarly, Zephaniah 1:12 speaks of a time when God will address those of Jerusalem who are “settled on their lees”.  They had become full of themselves and had lost their clarity, having forgotten who (and whose) they were.  So, Zephaniah warns them of their impending fining process – exile – where they will be poured out into the vessel of Babylon.    

In the scriptures, the purpose of the refining process is to prevent the people of God from spoiling or becoming unusable by having become too attached to a vessel (or the sediment within it), that is not their final, eternal place with God. 

The refining process – whether for actual winemaking or for the patient perfecting of God’s people – yields a fine remnant, fit for a feast.  And the sediment, once separated from the remnant, is only good for compost.

But.  Isaiah 25:6 is not describing a feast at which the people are the wine element offered for consumption.  Instead, this is a feast overflowing with what God is eager to offer of Himself to those prepared to receive Him. 

This is a celebration of the perfect union: God and His chosen people, Christ and His beloved Church, are at last wholly together – like a bride and groom – unveiled and complete!  What better meal to complement this celebration than the ideal pairing of choice meat cuts and fine wine.

It was the promise of this day that rendered “the joy for which Jesus endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2; Matthew 26:29).  And by the way, if the wine made by Jesus at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-12) is any indication of what’s in store at the coming banquet foretold in Isaiah, we have good reason to endure our process in the same way He did: obediently, and with eyes set on the promise of the hope that is to come.

Wine “makes the heart glad” (Psalm 104:15) making it a perfect element for a feast.  However, the fine wine at the feast promised in Isaiah 25 is offered for more than mere gladness.  It’s a symbol of the atoning blood of Jesus which is the only way into this celebration.

“The life is in the blood,” says God in Genesis 9 and Leviticus 17, and it was forbidden for the Israelites to drink the blood of animals, perhaps because it would be unholy for an animal’s life to be in them.  At the very least, the observance of this and the many other commands surrounding blood would serve to uphold the sanctity of it (the possession of it – life; and the shedding of it – death). 

Contrast that with John 6:53-57 where Jesus says, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will have no life in you.” 

On the night He was betrayed, Jesus “…took the cup, gave thanks, and passed it to His disciples and said, ‘Drink this, all of you, this is my blood of the new covenant which has been poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’.” 

Of course, it was not Jesus’s actual blood in the cup.  He hadn’t died yet.  His actual blood was on the brim of being poured out on the cross to forever-satisfy the thirsty, final vessel of death and blot out its claim on any who choose to forsake own their life in this world and receive the life of Christ in them.  So, what Jesus was offering His disciples was a cup full of “the fruit of the vine” meant to symbolize his blood – free of impurities, mature and lacking nothing – the perfect expression of the One who sent Him.

After He gave the blood of the new covenant to His disciples Jesus said, “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until I drink it anew with you in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:22-25; Matt 26:26-28; Luke 22:15-20).

Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22), and without forgiveness we can’t be set free from the claim of death or our death-bound way.  Without being set free from death’s claim, we can’t become a new creation, capable of realizing abundant life while feasting from an eternal source.  Forgiveness of sin is offered for all who believe that Jesus’s blood paid the penalty for their sin, and this alone makes them fit – cleansed and covered – for eternal life.

We do not, ourselves, create or conjure a goodness worthy of eternity with a holy God.  We receive God’s righteousness as our only means of rescue from eternal death and from the things that rob us of real living even now (meaninglessness, futility, despair, worry, lies, loss, disappointment, scarcity, etc.).  His life is given for us to receive – not for us to measure up to – so that we may be filled by God and know the real living that comes of that.  This truth is a stumbling block for most, but a great hope for many.

Jesus gave His disciples a symbol of His blood to drink so that they might understand the truth of salvation: all who take in His perfect life shall now possess life which death cannot touch.  The life is in the blood. Eternal life is found in the blood of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

And until the work of atonement that was finished on the cross finds its fulfillment in all things made anew, Jesus will remain at the right hand of the Father who is working to make all things subject to Jesus, so that God may be all in all.

The wine of this future banquet will be served in remembrance of the forever-truth for all people – that is, all those who are at the feast – that they were set free from death and brought into life thanks to the sacrificial love of God proven to us by His blood shed for us even while we were opposed to Him (Romans 5:8). 

Yet the Son of God didn’t die merely so that we might have life, but life to the full (John 10:10).  For this, we need more than forgiveness and escape from death.  We need the continual nourishment and sustaining life-force of God.  And the feast menu suggests that God is offering exactly that. 

What might the fat, choice pieces, and marrow at the feast represent? What is God disposed to offer His people for abundant life and real living? What nourishment of God pairs perfectly with the blood of the new covenant?

In ancient times, “fat things” were rendered into pure ointment used to wipe away pain, heal wounds, blot out disease, and symbolize God’s anointing. Its oil was used for perfume to soothe and uplift the tired sojourner. 

“Choice pieces” and rich food are for savoring, and is the sustenance that empowers real living. 

As for marrow, it is concentrated decadence – a fine delicacy – from the deepest essence of oneself.   

Perhaps at this feast-to-come there will be oil to anoint the heads of the honored guests, and a sweet fragrance to refresh the weary.  Perhaps balm will be applied to the fill the wounds inflicted by the enemy swarms, and ointment to restore every loss to joy and gladness (Joel 2:25; Isaiah 51:11).    

Maybe we’ll be served choice pieces of grace and truth, justice and righteousness, and love and mercy, and given fat portions of wisdom and understanding.

We’ll savor His decadent kindness and disarming compassion against the backdrop of His exquisite goodness and glory. And we’ll marvel that our final, forever place isn’t just a seat at a table somewhere in this kingdom that overflows with peace and prosperity – no, our final, forever place is with the host Himself!

It isn’t hard to imagine the accompaniment of an endless chorus of cheers to God’s restorative forgiveness and to the faithfulness which causes Him to be in unrelenting pursuit of us, for this – Hallelujah! – is the deepest essence of who He is.

Even now, it’s possible to enjoy the aromas coming from this feast, emanating from its high place so that all might know which way to walk, and so that along the way we might begin cultivating a craving for its food.

_____

Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and crushed by the winepress of death so that His life-blood could fulfill the debt for iniquity that God’s justice demands. 

He, who was the very nature of perfection, made Himself nothing and identified with humanity to its final extent – overcome with the horror of sin and separation from God – so that we might identify with Christ to the fullest extent, overcome by the gift of God’s grace and our restoration to right-standing with God. 

After taking the Father’s portion of wrath toward sin, and suffering its final consequence on our behalf, Jesus was raised from the grave – effectively putting death to death.  Someday Jesus alone, the proven, faithful victor will trample underfoot every last seed of death and the fruit of all opposition to His life. 

Those opposed to God – those who drink from the fruit of their own vine – will become like a drunk who trembles in fear, sees delusions, and falls down.  Having feasted on their own futility, when they are crushed – when their life-blood is poured into the grave – it will be consumed by death’s eternal claim because the hope of resurrection is not found in them (Revelations 19-21). 

But for those who claim the blood of Christ as their hope for life, they will triumph over death as He did, and be raised to new life with Him.  As they mature in the way and the nature of God, and gain clarity as they trust in God, they will begin to resemble a more perfect expression of the Father.  Even now, they are being transformed into likeness of the eschatological vintage – possessing a pleasing aroma of salvation, increasing in the goodness that comes with maturity, and filled with the vigor of the Spirit (Rom 8, 12; 2 Cor 3:18).

Just as any fine wine glorifies its maker, God has chosen His people to do exactly that.  Winemakers harvest with great care and precision because once the grapes are pressed, the juice of a single, foul grape can’t be plucked out of the wine. Similarly, for His name’s sake, God is selective. He determines the moment of perfect readiness, and chooses only those on the fruit-bearing branches of His own vine (John 15:1-8).  Who are these people?  They are the ones whose hope rests solely in the Rock of Salvation (Isaiah 28:16).  They are the ones who look to no high place of their own for help. Instead, they look only to the God whose high kingdom cannot be shaken – to the God who makes His dwelling place in the eternal city, otherwise known as the mountain of Zion.

In this mountain, the Lord of all reality and its constellations and ecosystems will prepare, for all who have come, an abundant feast of the fruit of salvation and the rich delicacies of Himself (Hebrews 12).

POSTSCRIPT

We don’t conquer the kingdom of God as victors like Him, we inherit it as children of Him.  We don’t earn salvation because we are good, God gives salvation to us because He is good.  These truths are what set God’s message of salvation apart from all others. 

The reason why Jesus tells us to literally ingest Him (symbolically), for example, “Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6:55-56), is to remind us that it is God-in-us that allows us to walk out our new life in Him.    

The word became flesh (John 1:14) and said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day… Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.  The one who feeds on me will live because of me.” (John 6:50-57)

Truly, this is a hard teaching.  Who can accept it?  And yet, is it offensive to be offered resurrection from the dead by God Himself?  (John 6:60 – 67). 

How do we, two thousand years later, drink Christ’s blood?  For the uncurious, the message of good news sounds like cannibalism at best; or condemnation at worst (in what world must someone else die to give me my righteousness?). 

Christ-in-us does the work in us so that we might have life to the full.  Therefore, we must decrease so that He may increase (John 3:30).  We must lose our life in this world to find our life in Him (John 12:25).  This news hits people differently – it’s a huge relief to those who have assessed that they are utterly unable to grant themselves the full life they were born to crave; and it’s a huge insult to those who have determined no real need of rescue, or who would rather be saved by their own good deeds (though very often this religion of salvation by works becomes a crushing burden which allows one to finally hope for the gospel of salvation by grace – Matt 11:28).

For those who hunger and thirst for a saving righteousness not of their own, they will be given this clarity in exchange for their confusion:  Ingesting God means receiving Him at His Word. 

Those who have been given ears to hear the message of salvation will understand it as an invitation to put their faith in Him.

The meaning is revealed in John 6:40 – “My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life.”  And John 1:12 – “To all who did receive Him – who believed in His name – he gave the right to become children of God.”

So then, how can we believe?  Jesus said, “It’s God’s work: to believe in the Word of God” (John 6:29). 

Should it be a surprise that the only way to believe in God is if God gives us the belief to believe in Him (Mark 9:24)?  And so, for us, doing the work of God is believing Him.  Contrary to the depleting nature of the work done to sustain our life in this world, our nourishment – the actual food – for our eternal life in God is to do the will of the Father. Our work is to trust and obey Him (John 4:34), and Psalm 34:8 invites us to try this promise: “Taste and see…”.  

Eternal life is only possible if God makes it so, from start to finish (Romans 1:17).  Therefore, the sooner you get over yourself, the better. 

It was there all along, this fact of our Christ-centered faith being truly centered on God alone.  It gets missed, because self-centered doctrines crouch daily at our door and seek to slither up through the holes in our unbelief.  To master the lies, live by the Word of God (Matt 4:4).

What is our part in the work of salvation now, and in the journey toward realizing the full promise of salvation someday?  God is always working (John 5:17) – so much so that it would seem the only labor left for us to do is to clear the path so that God can do His (Isaiah 40:3, Matt 21:7-11,); although even this is done with the hand of God (Proverbs 3:6, Isaiah 2, Isaiah 49:11, Matt 21:12-13, John 2:14-16).

And yet, there is work for us to do.  We have passed outside of death, and we’ve been given eternal life which includes right now.  And this life in us cries out for a response, even now, from within our earth-bound bodies (Luke 19:40). 

No healed paralytic “takes up his mat and walks” unless he believes he has been made well (John 5:8-9).  In the same way, any believing recipient of eternal life is imbued with a command to “come out!” – to go from death – and begin now to truly live (John 11:43-44).

It just so happens that God has given us everything we need for life and for living as if what we believe about God is true (2 Peter 1:3, Ephesians 1:3).  We have everything we need for eternal life – for knowing God – and for living as if God really is the great I Am, and the Sovereign I Will. 

Someday, we will feast in Zion on the finest things of God, fully removed from the sin and death of this world.  But even now we are invited to consume the Word of God and to try, to the fullest extent, the promise of God and His provisions in the place that He has prepared for us today (Joshua 18:3), because God is not just the God of “someday” – He is the God of now (Hebrews 4:1-7).  Therefore, since He has given us a now, receive His forgiveness, take in His life, and walk in His way of obedience in keeping with trust and love of the Father. 

“Now, may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus… equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.”  Heb 13:20-21

(further musing on the feast)

THE INVITATION

There exists for everyone, an invitation to a feast in the eternal realm.  In order to have a seat at the table, one must be set free from their earth-bound nature and its fated course, and receive a new nature which can endure into the eternal realm.  Eternal life, for us, is a ray.  It has a beginning, but it has no end.  It begins the moment we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and is the rescuer from our earth-bound self and its mortal way.  This is the point at which we become a new creation – an eternal creation of God – bound now to eternal life and to a new journey with Him toward the day of feasting. 

God does not undo any new creation that He began.  It would be more plausible for a mother to pluck her DNA out of her newborn child with her bare hands than it would be for God to withdraw His new creation in us.  But even if she could remove her nature from her child, God will never forsake His own (Deut 31:8).  He is faithful to complete His good work (Phil 1:6).

There are two ways.  The way of the flesh which leads to eternal death, and the way of God that leads to eternal life.  Those who are not of God are dead to eternal life and to the hope of real living.  They will die an eternal death within their earth-bound flesh.  They are of a mortal nature – a nature opposed to God – the sin nature.  But, because of God’s great love for us, while we were still opposed to Him, God made a way for us to be of Him.

According to the high and mysterious ways of God, sin can be transferred onto a blameless substitute who must then submit to death as the one now of sin.  This act satisfies the payment sin is due (death) and frees the sinner from this fate.  The old covenant permitted the repentant sinner to be released from the weight of their sins by using an unblemished animal as a sacrifice their sins.  God allowed certain animals which were free of defect to take on the sins of the people and be put to death, thereby freeing the sinner of the penalty of sins. 

However, despite the sacrificial animal being “perfect”, it did not possess eternal life, itself.  It had no authority of its own over sin, nor did it have the capacity to forever-satisfy the consequence of sin or forever-alter the course of the believer from eternal death to eternal life. It merely pointed to the idea of perfection. It played a part in God’s illustration of redemption to the world but was not in itself perfection; therefore, under the old covenant, animal sacrifices and sin offerings were conducted recurringly for generations, and served mostly as a foreshadow of God’s final solution for sin and death.

Jesus became our final solution for sin and eternal death when He, who had no sin, willingly went to the cross so that the sin of the world could be transferred onto Him, and so that He could be put to death on our behalf, taking all of sin with Him to the grave.  After the debt for every sin in the world from beginning to end was satisfied once and for all by the perfect blood of Jesus, He was raised up from the dead by the Spirit of God and restored to His eternal place with God the Father.  As vast as they are, sin and death can be contained and destroyed, but the life of God cannot. 

Because God loves the whole world and died that all might be saved, anyone who will accept the atoning act of Jesus as the full payment for their sin and their only hope of salvation shall be saved once and forever. This is the new covenant.  They shall be cleansed from sin, freed from the grasp of eternal death, and given life that endures to eternity.  Meanwhile, our flesh still dies despite now possessing eternal life, because the flesh cannot inherit eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:50).  And our flesh still experiences the yields of sin and death in this world just as the Israelites, upon reaching their promise land in the earthly realm, still wavered in and out of a right relationship with God and suffered accordingly (the Old Testament). 

Until we are made fully anew by God through our death to this world, we, like the Israelites, may reap a harvest of ruin as we labor in opposition to God (sowing to please ourselves – Galatians 6:8); but we may also bear the fruits of eternal life as we plant our life in the Spirit, because eternal life includes right now (Matthew 3:8). 

Yes, even today the Word of God is able to nourish our deepest being with truth, and impart wisdom to our soul. His Spirit is able to encourage us, give us spiritual guidance, clarity of conscience, peace, and more. This is heaven’s gift, albeit, served in portions sufficient to keep us longing for the power of the age to come.

God is not merely the God of “once all things are made anew”, He is the God of “now”.  Therefore, since there is a now, taste the goodness of the Word of God and feast on communion with Him (Hebrews 6:4-6).