This morning I want to focus on some special meals in the Bible. Let’s begin with the meal that Abraham served to the Lord.

The report of that meal is found in Gn 18 and that chapter begins with an appearance of the Lord God. Please take your Bibles and turn to Gn 18 and follow along as I read vv 1-8.

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, "My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

Notice that the first verse of this chapter tells us that "[t]he Lord appeared to Abraham." There is just one Hebrew word back of the English words, "the Lord," in this verse. That word is Yahweh, and Yahweh is God’s personal name. So this verse is very explicit that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, appeared to Abraham.

So what do we expect to read about? If we had never read this chapter before and someone read just v 1 to us without letting us see the rest, I think we would imagine a story that told of the appearance to Abraham of a magnificent, glorified being. But that is not what happened, is it?

The remainder of this chapter tells us what that appearance of the Lord was like, and it appears not to have been all that glorious. However, it is mysterious to those who, like ourselves, can only read about it later.

The mystery for the reader begins immediately. Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent when he looks up and sees three men standing near him. The reader wonders where they came from. Why did Abraham not hear nor see them coming? Did he doze off and see them when they made a noise, or did they suddenly materialize in "Star Trek" fashion?

But an even more surprising feature is that we are expecting an appearance of the Lord, and what Abraham sees is three men. When does the Lord appear we wonder? Where is God.

But notice that when Abraham runs up to these three visitors, he refers only to, "My Lord;" not lords, but lord. The Hebrew word for "lord" here is roughly equivalent to our word "sir," and this word for "lord" is the one that later Judaism uses in the place of Yahweh, because of fear that they will use the name "Yahweh" in vain. But why does Abraham only refer to one lord here, to one sir? It may suggest that Abraham could just tell by looking that one of these visitors was superior to the others. Could he tell that one of them was actually God made to look like a man? We do not really know. However, Abraham’s greeting adds to the mystery of this extraordinary encounter.

Notice what Abraham feeds his unexpected guests. He provides them with a meal that has two significant connections to the sacrifices that the law would later require of Israel. The first connection has to do with the bread which was made for these guests. Abraham tells his wife, Sarah, to use qemach soleth/"choice flour." This flour is the kind of flour that later would be required as the kind that had to be used for certain religious activities in the tabernacle or temple.

The second connection has to do with the calf that was cooked for these three guests. You see Abraham used the same kind of calf that the law would later require for Israel’s sacrificial system.

And note that two special opportunities or blessings were bestowed upon Abraham due to this meal with the Lord. The first blessing came during or just after this meal. That first blessing is the Lord’s reaffirmation that Abraham and Sarah would indeed have a son in the near future. In addition, the Lord revealed what He was about to do in Sodom, where Abraham’s nephew Lot lived; and the Lord gave Abraham the opportunity to plead on behalf of that city; and the Lord was extremely responsive to that pleading. What we see is that Abraham’s meal with the Lord was surrounded by the mysterious presence of God and was a source of divine blessings for Abraham.

The next important meal in the Bible is the Passover. Most of you know that the Passover meal was the meal that the Israelites ate on the night the Lord slew all of Egypt’s firstborn but saved the firstborn of the Israelites. This meal is called Passover because it is eaten in memory of the night that God passed over the Israelite firstborn and slew only the firstborn of the Egyptians. You can read about the institution of that meal in Gn 12. The Passover meal was then maintained as a central element of the Israelite faith to remind the people of the way God had delivered them from the land of Egypt. So this meal was surrounded by the memory of God’s deliverance; it was a meal celebrating the saving love and power of Israel’s God.

The next meal upon which I want to focus is reported in Ex 24. Please turn in your Bibles to that chapter and follow along as I read. I will begin by reading vv 1 & 2.

Then [the Lord] said to Moses, "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship at a distance. Moses alone shall come near the Lord; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him."

Now look down a bit further to vv 9-11. There we read,

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

This meal is one of the most mysterious events reported in the Bible. The Bible is clear in saying that no one could see God and live, and yet this group do that very thing. There are many ways to harmonize this story with other passages; the fascinating thing is that the Bible shows no interest in doing that. The Bible lets the report stand without harmonization and without any apparent embarrassment. It maintains the mystery of this appearance and causes the God-loving reader to wish that she or he had been there. We wish that we could have eaten that meal in the very presence of God.

Now take your Bibles and turn to Isa 25:6-10a and follow along as I read.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.

Here we have reference to a feast in the future, a feast at a time when God will have won the final victory over all evil and all sorrow. The feast will be in celebration of God’s deliverance of God’s people.

This reference in Isaiah prepares us for a couple of reference of Jesus to a special feast. Please turn to Mt 8. Most of us will know that the sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew chapters five through seven. Matthew 8:1 tells what happened immediately after that sermon was finished. Jesus moved down off of the mountain and healed a leper. He then traveled to Capernaum. Listen to what happened there. Follow along as I read Mt 8:5-13.

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion answered, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it." When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, "Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; let it be done for you according to your faith." And the servant was healed in that hour.

Notice the reference to eating "with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." Now turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 13. In vv 28-29 of that chapter Jesus tells his Jewish listeners of a time when

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.

Robert Hagner in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew refers to the feast described in both Matthew and Luke, and then says, "The allusion is to the eschatological banquet . . . , a great festival of rejoicing and feasting in celebration of the victory of God, anticipated in both the OT and NT . . . ." (Matthew 1-13, 1993, p 205).

Now let’s look at one more passage. Turn to Rev 19:5-9b. Here we have a picture of a great event to take place in heaven at the end of time. Listen to the description of that event.

And from the throne came a voice saying, "Praise our God, all you his servants, and all who fear him, small and great." Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure"—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."

Will there really be food in heaven? Will we really eat? I have no idea. But I know that feasting is something that we associate with celebrating. And there is going to be a great celebration in heaven. We are going to celebrate the joyous union of Jesus the Lamb with His bride, His bride the church, His bride the people of God.

We need to develop an appetite for that feast. We need to long for that celebration. We need to live everyday knowing that the way we are to use it preparation for the wedding feast of the Lamb. How blessed indeed "are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."

John is going to come to lead us in a song now to whet our appetites for that feast. John come lead us.

In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke we have the report of Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper. In all three of those reports Jesus refers to the upper to be eaten later, the supper which the book of Revelation calls "the marriage supper of the Lamb." Matthew and Mark report this statement which Jesus made in connection with the drinking of the cup. Jesus says, "I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom." In Luke’s Gospel we read that Jesus "said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’"

Jesus makes a clear connection between. the Lord’s Supper and the supper to be eaten when the final victory is won at the end of time. I believe that such a connection is to enrich our participation together in the Lord’s Supper. As we eat we are to long for the Lord. We are to long for His return. We are to hunger to be one of those who a blessed to be invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb, the Lamb who was slain that we might live forever.

I believe that God is with us in this meal. I believe that this meal is to be eaten with a sense of joy and awe at being in presence of God. I believe that this meal is to have associated with it a sense of the mystery of God’s presence among us. This is a sacred meal. We are in the presence of God. We are to eat it with wonder and joy. We are to eat it in joyful anticipation of the time when we eat the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven where God will reign over all of creation and evil will be destroyed forever.