Miniature Invasions of the Kingdom of God

Jesus came to save sinners. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for many. And as Tim Chester points out, a central part of that mission is embodied for us in the fact that Jesus came eating and drinking. He modeled in His life the means and method by which the Kingdom of God will come on earth as it is in heaven. After Jesus suffered and died and gave His life as a ransom to free us from the power of sin, death, and the devil, He poured His Spirit on us in order that His life might multiply and fill the world. And that’s why at the center of our life together is this table where we proclaim the forgiveness of sins, the rescue of the lost, the ransom of every captive, the freedom of every slave, the resurrection of the dead. At the center of our life together, is eating and drinking with Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus came eating and drinking, and Jesus still comes eating and drinking. He does that here week after week as we renew covenant together. But He comes in your homes as you eat and drink together in gladness. He comes in your Sabbath feasting when you laugh with your children and honor your wife with compliments. He comes when you make meals for one another and show hospitality to one another. He comes in your parish groups, He comes when you make cookies for your neighbors, when you share your bread with the hungry, when you cheerfully make bag lunches for your children. He comes eating and drinking, He comes to seek and save that which was lost. He comes to ransom the captives and to set them all free. This table is a party table, a victory feast, celebrating the freedom of the captives. We have been ransomed. We are free. We are forgiven. So we celebrate this now, and our tables cannot be anything less than extensions of this table. Our meals, all of them, are just miniature invasions of the Kingdom of God.