Food is such a good image that Jesus makes tremendous use of it and the whole of Scripture probably compares God’s great work to a feast as much as to anything else. Today, we get the food imagery. Isaiah summons the folks to a feast and Jesus feeds the thousands. As we have been developing the rest aspect this summer, the preacher who is on that theme will notice that Isaiah offers food at no cost. You don’t labor for this feast. Jesus feeds the multitudes with bread and fish which miraculously are multiplied. No sweaty brows here, but a taste of Eden restored.
Of course, we have a regular reminder of this. The Lord’s Supper is an actualization of the food metaphor. Jesus invites us to dine upon himself. We take the Holy One and the holiness of God inside ourselves and the old adage of “you are what you eat” becomes more and more true of us as we return to that table time and again. We call it the foretaste of the feast to come which is heaven. It is the very forgiveness of sins of which we partake. It is the kingdom of God which we genuinely can sink our teeth into.
