Tag Archives: Feast

Chapter-a-Day

The Wedding

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The Wedding (CaD Rev 19) – Wayfarer

Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
Revelations 19:9 (NIV)

I mentioned yesterday that Wendy and I were at a wedding this past weekend. The dinner was amazing. If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know that Wendy and I love a great meal, especially when it’s the trifecta of a great meal with great people enjoying great conversation.

At one point between savory bites, Wendy looked at me, her eyes as wide as saucers. “This is not only the best wedding meal I’ve ever had, but it’s right up there with maybe being the best meal I’ve had, ever.”

High praise, for sure. A great meal is always special amidst the love, laughter, joy, and celebration of two lives being united as one.

The metaphors of a wedding, of a bride and bridegroom, are used repeatedly by Jesus. At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the metaphor was even understood and shared between Jesus and His cousin, John the Baptist:

[John’s disciples] came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.”

Sometime later, the same disciples of John asked Jesus why His disciples didn’t religiously fast the way John made them fast:

Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.“

Toward the end of His ministry, Jesus was still using this metaphor. He told a parable of ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom to arrive so they could accompany him and his bride with their oil lamps to the wedding feast at the house of the bridegroom and his family. Some of the bridesmaids got tired of waiting and they didn’t have their oil lamps filled, trimmed, and ready when the bridegroom arrived.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that the ancients often used weddings and funerals as metaphorical contrasts. John uses this ancient device in yesterday’s chapter (a funeral dirge for the demise of “Babylon the Great”) and today’s chapter in which Jesus, the Bridegroom, having tarried like the bridegroom in His parable for 2000+ earth years (as of today), finally celebrates a heavenly wedding feast and is united with His metaphorical bride, all of His followers whose names are written in the Book of Life.

But the contrasts aren’t over! There’s a feast to come that is a stark contrast to the wedding feast of the Lamb. An angel in heaven cries out to all the vultures and carrion fowl on earth to prepare for their own morbid picnic.

Jesus and a heavenly army then descend to meet the unholy trinity and all of the kings and kingdoms of the earth, those who had steadfastly refused to repent during the great tribulation, gathered against Him. The only weapon brought to the battle is the metaphorical sword of Jesus’ words. The anti-christ and his false prophet are captured and thrown into a lake of fire. Their followers become the entree du jour for the vultures.

In the quiet this morning, I’m struck by the simple roots of these contrasting metaphors. A funeral and a wedding. A death dirge and a wedding feast. The eerie silence of a battlefield when the battle is over and the carrion fowl pick at the corpses, and the raucous cheers of a wedding party, blessedly satiated and maybe a wee bit intoxicated, unabashedly dancing to “YMCA.”

I can’t help but be reminded of what God said to His people at the outset of this Great Story:

“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses…I have set before you life and death…”

I made my choice. I sent in the RSVP.

I’m simply waiting for the bridegroom to arrive.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“L’chaim!”

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"L'chaim!" (CaD Ps 128) – Wayfarer

…your children will be like olive shoots
    around your table.
Psalm 128:3b (NIV)

This month marks our sixth anniversary here at “Vander Well Manor,” the house Wendy and I built here in the most awesome little town in America. Wendy, working alongside our contractor, did a lot of the designing of our house and she did an amazing job.

One of the rooms that got special attention in the design of our home was the dining room. In fact, the original designs had the dining room that you usually see in homes today. It was a tight little space large enough to comfortably fit a standard table for six. We quickly decided that this just wouldn’t do. We ended up creating an entire addition to the house just for our dining room in which we placed a table that comfortably seats eight (but we’ve squeezed 10-12 people around it).

One of our good friends once commented, “You’re the only people I know who actually use your dining room on a regular basis.” Meals are an important piece of life to Wendy and me. It’s where we gather with family and friends. It’s where conversation flows like wine and where community is formed. Even when our girls were teenagers and lives were hectic, we attempted to have at least one evening meal per week in which we were sitting together at the table and engaged one another. Now, the nest is empty, but even Wendy and I frequent the dining room, just the two of us.

Today’s chapter, Psalm 128, is akin to yesterday’s. It’s hard not to understand why the editors who compiled this collection of ancient Hebrew song lyrics put the two side-by-side in the compilation. They are both celebrations of hearth, home, and family.

The words “your children will be like olive shoots around your table” leaped off the page when I read it. Olive shoots were a common metaphor to the ancient Hebrews. An olive shoot is young, green, full of life and possibility. Olive trees have amazingly long and productive lives. One olive tree in Portugal is estimated to be 3,350 years old. That means it was already over 1,000 years old when the writer of Psalm 128 penned the lyrics of today’s chapter. When I visited the olive “garden” outside of Jerusalem where tradition says Jesus went to pray the night of His arrest, I learned that there were trees in that garden today that were alive and present that fateful night.

Wendy and I were so blessed this past Christmas to have the kids and Milo home. As always, meals were an important part of the family agenda from cocktails through dessert. Christmas Day began with a brunch feast and continued in the afternoon with the most amazing charcuterie spread that Wendy and the girls worked together to create. I cherish the experience, and the Life present and celebrated around the table. As the Hebrews say as a toast, “L’chaim!” (“to life!”).

In the quiet this morning, I remember a former colleague who told me that their family ate the entire traditional Thanksgiving feast in ten minutes. She then swore that she wasn’t exaggerating. The family gathered, ate, and were done at the table in ten minutes. I’m not criticizing. That might just be how they roll, and that’s cool for them. As for me, and my house, we’re going to be at the table a little longer than that, enjoying good food, good drink, good conversations, and the good company of one another which happens far too seldom.

Let Life flow! Let the young olive shoots grow!

L’chaim!

Chapter-a-Day

A Table Prepared for All

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On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare
    a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
    the best of meats and the finest of wines.
Isaiah 25:26 (NIV)

I love a great dinner party. We have become such a fast food, quick serve, grab-a-snack culture that it’s rare to really enjoy a feast any more. I had a friend tell me that she and her family finished Thanksgiving dinner in 10 minutes. There’s something wrong with this picture.

A great dinner party starts early with a drink and an appetizer. People mingle. There’s light conversation. Guests begin to unwind. It moves on to a table that’s prepared. Things are laid out. Everything you need for the evening is set before you. The plates, knives, forks, spoons, and glassware are a road map to the feast. There is salad and/or soup before the main course. The main course follows after and is perfectly proportioned with complementary dishes. There is an aperitif to cleanse the palate before moving on to dessert. And, there are wines served to compliment each course. By the time dessert is served you have been on a journey. A feast is to be savored, en-joy-ed along with the company and conversation around the table.

I love that God’s word picture of what’s-to-come is a feast. It’s the word picture He gave Abraham when first introducing Himself in Genesis 18. It’s the word picture Jesus gives in Revelation of the relationship He desires with every one. A dinner party. A leisurely meal with good food and good fellowship around the table.

I am struck this morning that Isaiah’s prophetic feast is for all people. So often the image of God we project to the world is that of a miserly monarch condemning the many to save the exclusive few. But Isaiah’s prophetic image is a feast of salvation for all people and all nations. When Jesus picked up and riffed on this word picture in his parable of the wedding feast he speaks of inviting those who you’d least expect to have a seat at the table, the master’s servants grabbing anyone and everyone off the street and ushering them to the table.

This morning I’m thinking about dinner parties, feasts, and a God who desires the communal oneness that is experienced with good food, good wine, and good relationship around a table well prepared.

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Chapter-a-Day

We Need More Festivals

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Thus Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed festivals of the Lord.
Leviticus 23:44 (NRSV)

For going on nearly a century, our small Iowa town has held a Tulip Festival every May. Everything stops for three days as residents pour their time and energy into the tens of thousands of visitors who descend on our community. Make no mistake, the festival is all about promotion and commerce. It’s the major fundraiser of the year for most of our community organizations. Nevertheless, I think everyone in our town would agree that the festival is much more than that. It celebrates our history, our heritage, and it promotes a strong sense of community and a spirit of service within it.

Festival is just a fun word. From the Latin word for “feast,” the root word is defined as “cheerful and jovially celebratory.” Who doesn’t want that? That’s one of the reasons Wendy and I wanted to get married on New Year’s Eve. What a great evening to celebrate our lives and love through time.

I find it interesting that God would program into His people’s calendar a series of “festivals.” At the top of the list is the weekly day of Sabbath or rest. The weekly day of rest was supposed to be a festival, but over time the religious people turned it into its own version of burdensome religious toil. Jesus got more grief from religious leaders about breaking Sabbath rules than anything else He said or did. The uptight religious people had perverted a festival of rest into a weekly religious burden. That was never its intention and Jesus knew it.

I can’t say that the institutional church and Jesus’ followers have done much better with our weekly day of worship which was moved from the Jewish sabbath on Saturday to the day of Jesus’ resurrection on Sunday. Each Sunday is supposed to be a festival of resurrection, but I wouldn’t describe the weekly mood in many churches as “festive.”

I knew a family who decided to try and instill this understanding of Sunday being a festival of Jesus’ resurrection in their young children. They began early in the week looking in anticipation of Sunday as a special day of celebration. Every Saturday night (the eve of Resurrection Day) they had a special family meal that the children helped plan during the week. Guests were invited to join them. They decorated with bright colors and had special desserts. There was a large brass chandelier fixture in their dining room with long swooping arms. At the end of the weekly Resurrection Eve dinner all of the meal participants would stand with a party popper, point it at the chandelier and pull their popper so that the colorful streamers would hit the chandelier and get caught on the arms. There the streamers would stay so that each week day the children would see the colorful remnant of their weekly feast and look forward to the next.

The family celebrated getting to worship on Sunday and celebrate the Resurrection. They planned special moments together on Sunday as well. Believe me. The day I was a guest in their home, the children couldn’t wait for their weekly Saturday night and Sunday festival.

This morning I’m thinking about the fact that we don’t do more to make personal festivals a way to mark special days, seasons, heritage, and history that is meaningful to us and our loved ones. Festivals are fun as well as meaningful. Who doesn’t love a nice feast in which to be cheerful and jovially celebratory? Let’s plan a little festival and invite our loved ones.

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Featured image by metku via Flickr

Chapter-a-Day

Recounting

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“The following are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the Israelites defeated….”
Joshua 12:7a (NRSV)

In the fall of this year, Wendy is scheduled to direct a musical for our local community theatre called The Christmas Post. She’s directed it twice before. It’s been ten years since the last time. Yesterday Wendy was putting together some of the required paperwork and she handed me a list of all the shows she’s been involved in over the past 11 years. It filled the better part of a page, single-spaced.

“Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed as she held up the list for me to look at. “This is a lot of shows! You don’t think about it until you really write it all down and see the whole list!”

She is right, of course. Along life’s journey I’ve discovered that it’s good to recount things. Just think about the word: re-count. Count it again. Make a list. Go over the list. Think about it. I have always had a bent towards history and nostalgia, so perhaps it comes a bit more naturally to me. Nevertheless, I’ve found it worthwhile. Recounting things reminds you of where you’ve been, which gives you perspective of where you are, which then helps you make informed decisions about where you’re going, which helps you choose the next step.

Recounting can also remind you of what God has done in the past, which strengthens the faith you need in the moment, so that you can press on in the journey to which He has called you. It is a repetitive theme throughout God’s Message: Remember these things. Teach them to your children. Don’t forget this story. Feast each year and recount what happened. Count your blessings and name them one-by-one.  “As often as you do this, remember me.”

Today’s chapter is not exactly full of inspiration. It’s simply a recounting of the kings who Josh and the 12 Tribes defeated. But it serves as a reminder that sometimes it’s good to re-count. Recount the good times. Recount the times God answered a prayer. Recount what got me to this place. Recount the lessons I’ve learned.

Happy recounting.

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Wayfarer's Journal

Thanksgiving 2015

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Our first Thanksgiving here at Vander Well Manor in the Pella Theatre District, and the family from both sides came our way to break in the digs. It was my first time cooking the Thanksgiving turkey, but I’m happy to report it went really well. By the time the family arrived the house was filled with an amazing aroma.

Anyone who know Wendy knows m’love does hospitality right. We had appetizers and wine as the house filled with the din of family conversation. The kitchen and the dinner was well planned like the D-Day invasion. Because there were 16 of us, we had to split the crew. The elders feasted in the dining room while the five youngest (along with Uncle Scott) dined nearby in the Great Room.

Dessert was a splendid spread of goodies provided by all. The men enjoyed a little nip of single-malt downstairs at the V-Dub Pub. I had several family members who came into the studio for a little photo portrait, which was a lot of fun. Madison, who was spending Thanksgiving working on a term paper in an Asheville, North Carolina hotel room, joined us for a FaceTime visit.

Driving rain and falling temps chased everyone away far sooner than we would have preferred. I get it. They wanted to get home before the rain turned to ice and snow. So did we, really. We’ll rest easier tonight knowing that everyone is resting, all snug in their beds, with visions of Christmas dancing in their heads.

After a generous dose of clean-up, Taylor, Suzanna, Wendy and I watched This is Where I Leave You which was a wonderful way to end a family holiday. We then settled in for a little Thanksgiving football and relaxation. I didn’t get a Thanksgiving nap, so I think an early bedtime will have to do.

So thankful today for family, friends, loved ones, and blessings innumerable.

Random Thoughts, Wayfarer's Journal

Thanksgiving Thoughts

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It’s early Thanksgiving morning. As usual, I’m up before the ladies. In a couple of hours the house will be bustling with preparations. For now, it is so quiet that my increasingly deaf ears can hear the wind and rain hitting the house.

It’s a very different holiday this year. In that past 15 months my mom and dad were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and cancer, respectively. This summer they moved into a retirement community. We have so much for which to be thankful despite present circumstances. Medication has slowed progress of mom’s illness. While dad’s cancer will require ceaseless cycles of oral chemotherapy, tests show that the cancerous proteins in his blood are now held at bay. They are in a wonderful retirement community filled with warm and enjoyable new friends. We are so thankful.

It has been a huge year of transition. Madison, sadly, will be flying the friendly skies today and is unable to join us. She has been working tirelessly and will graduate from UCCS in a few weeks. Taylor returned from Scotland with a master’s degree and diligently continues the job search. Suzanna is kicking it in her first year of college. Wendy and I sold a house, built a house, and moved. We’ve been more intentional with our local gathering of Jesus’ followers and stepped down from leadership in the community theatre. There has been so much movement on everyone’s respective life journeys.

All that said, I find my heart struggling to find equilibrium in the pre-dawn hours of this Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for everyone being relatively healthy and happy, yet I acknowledge the intense and painful struggle required for some of us to be able to report that. I am grateful for the blessing of family to be together, and still feel the heartache of missing family I have not seen for far too long. I am giving thanks for our wonderful new home where 16 of us can gather comfortably, and at the same time grieve the passing of family traditions that have been woven into the tapestry of our lives for so many years.

Yesterday I read about the relatively unknown story of Squanto. The native American who became a miraculous life-line to the Pilgrims in that first year in America had actually been abducted and sold as a slave in Europe. Given his freedom by Catholic friars in Spain, he lived in London for a time. He found his way back to America on a trading ship, agreeing to provide his interpretation skills in the new world in exchange for passage. When he returned, however, he found his tribe had been wiped out, likely by disease. He found his way home only to find himself alone in the world.

When Squanto wandered into the Pilgrim’s camp, he was uniquely prepared to help them. He had lived in London longer than some of the Pilgrims. He spoke their language. He understood their ways. He was uniquely qualified to teach them the skills they would need to survive the American wilderness. The Pilgrims had been through hell on their voyage and that first deathly winter. They were unprepared for life in the new world. Having lived through enslavement and a decade of struggle to get home, Squanto needed a tribe and a family. Having lived through the struggle of voyage and a terrible year of death, the Pilgrims needed someone to teach them how to survive in the New World and to communicate with their new neighbors. How miraculous that they found one another.

This morning in the quiet I find myself thinking about that first Thanksgiving. I find it fascinating that the gratitude for both Pilgrim and Native came at the end of a period of incredible challenges, struggles, defeats, and transition in their respective life journeys. And yet, they stopped to feast and offer God thanks in the midst of it all. They’d found each other, and in one another they’d found God’s gift of hope. It seems oddly familiar this year.

I hear Wendy in the kitchen. The rattling of pans has begun, and it’s time for me to start preparations for the feast and for family. Thanks to all who join me on this blogging journey and who, from time to time, take a moment to read my early morning rambling and meandering of heart. I’m grateful for you.

It’s time to roast a turkey. Blessings to you all.

Chapter-a-Day

After Dinner Blessing

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When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
Deuteronomy 8:10 (NIV)

The harvest here in Iowa is in full swing. Gorgeous, dry fall weather means that the corn and bean fields are full of combines and grain trucks bringing in the land’s bounty. When you live in Iowa, even if you have nothing to do with farming, you feel a keen connection to the land and the seasons of cultivating, planting, growing, and harvesting. It’s part of the fabric of daily life in the heartland.

Wendy and I love our meals with family and friends. We love setting the table, making a good meal, opening the wine, and sharing long hours of laughter and conversation over the food and drink. Especially during the harvest season there is a extra sense of gratitude I feel for God’s provision, the land which produces the abundance we enjoy, and those who labor to produce it.

The verse above is one that I have memorized and, quite regularly, at the end of a good meal it will come to mind as we sit in the contented afterglow of our feast. It is tradition at our table to say a prayer of blessing at the beginning of our meal, but this verse has taught me that it is every bit as appropriate to say a word of thanks and gratitude after “you have eaten and are satisfied.”

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Chapter-a-Day

The Most Amazing Dinner

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Table Set for ValentinesHere I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelation 3:20 (NIV)

A few years ago a friend came over for dinner and made an interesting observation. “You guys are the only people I know who actually use their dining room regularly, even with your kids.” It’s true. Of course, part of that reality is due to the size of our house, which is small and affords little space other than the dining room for a group of people to eat. The point our friend was making, however, was that we attempted to make time and space for real meals around the dining room table. The television is turned off, though dinner music is usually on. It is quite normal for dinner conversations at our house to go on for hours.

As I read through this morning’s chapter, I came upon the verse above, which was one of the first verses I memorized when I was a kid. The voice is that of Jesus, who is dictating the message to the seven churches through John. The door of which he speaks is the door of the heart. When a person spiritually hears Jesus knocking on the door of his or her heart and opens their heart to invite Him in, Jesus enters and indwells that person.

Here’s where the perception goes wrong for so many people. When Jesus enters a persons heart, the result is an amazing spiritual feast complete with the most intense and challenging dinner conversation you’ve ever experienced. There is give and take. Relationship is established. Life flows like wine. You are constantly challenged and forever changed by the experience. And I have also found that communing with Jesus is like the many times that we and our guests have looked at our watches and discovered that it’s well after midnight and we’ve been at the table for hours. Time flies. It has been 33 years since I invited Jesus into my heart and life, and the spiritual feast is just starting to get really intense.

I love great meals with great friends, great food, great wine, and great conversation that goes on for hours. One of the reasons I love it so much is because it is a shadow and a taste of the spiritual meal I have been enjoying with Jesus for over three decades.

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Wayfarer's Journal

A Guy’s Getaway

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Things look different in Winter.
With the house at 42 degrees, Matthew and I were wearing our coats for a few hours!
Chef Matthew preparing the birds.
Snapped this during my quiet time. The bareness of winter.
Lunch time!
Matthew and Paul prepping lunch.
Lots of casual conversation.
Chadwicke graciously waiting for the other carnivores to finish making their lunch.
“What’s scary is how little food came back home with us,” he said as he loosened his belt by two notches.
The primary activity of the weekend: great conversation over good food.
Movie time (no one fell asleep!).
Watching Captain Phillips.
The photographer gets in on a shot.
You disover things about people on weekends like this: Paul and his college buddies once owned the world record for playing pool for 10 ten days straight.
Rack ’em up, Matthew.
Chad’s halo helped. He came through with a couple of miraculous shots.
Paul Vander Hart is surely smiling down, knowing the pool table he made for the family years ago is still being used (warps and all).
Prepping the evening surf and turf feast.
Dinner!
Dinner conversation
The requisite group shot.

For the past four years I’ve talked about and desired to have a winter guy’s getaway to the lake. Even though there is relatively little to do on the lake, the opportunity to get out of Dodge and have a little of R&R with the boys is a good plan. This year I was finally able to pull the trigger and make it happen.

Matthew and I headed down late in the day on Thursday. The thermostat at the Playhouse is set on 40 degrees during the winter while we’re not there and I knew that it would take a while to warm up the house. In addition, there were beds that needed to be made, supplies to buy, and you never know what problems you might encounter after three months. The thermometer inside the house read 42 degrees when we arrived, but the thermostat’s LCD display was blank and wouldn’t come up. I hit the button that should kick on the furnace and the fan kicked in, but I couldn’t get the display to work.

Matthew and I headed to the grocery store to pick up our list and figured we’d see if things were warming up by the time we got back. It was still 42 degrees when we returned, so I pulled the thermostat apart, changed the batteries, tried to warm it up with a hair dryer in case the liquid crystal display was frozen, and prayed. After about 15 minutes of wrangling the display suddenly worked and we were able to get the furnace working. Even then, it was a chilly few hours waiting for the house to warm up.

Friday was spent in preparing for Paul and Chad’s arrival. We also went into Osage to get a new thermostat and caught a matinee showing of “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.” After returning to the Playhouse we threw two whole bbq rubbed chickens on the grill with some hickory smoke. By the time Paul and Chad arrived, we had a huge spread ready for them. The theme of the evening was “Who am I?” Dinner conversation around the table went until about 10:30-11:00 p.m. before we moved to the more comfortable living room. It was interesting as the conversation revolved around the men who were (or were not) mentors for us that shaped who we’ve become. It was almost 1:00 a.m. before we called it a night.

Saturday morning we had breakfast together and immediately the conversation from previous night launched into further give and take. About mid-morning we called a halt and went into a few hours of individual quiet time. I took my camera outside and walked down the shoreline, spending some time in prayer and taking a few pictures of the winter landscape. We reconnected for lunch and then sat down to watch “Captain Phillips” on DVD and ended up downstairs playing eight-ball on pool table Wendy’s grandpa made.

Dinner on Saturday evening was surf and turf. We had salmon and steak on the grill (mesquite smoke this time). The theme of conversation on Saturday was “Where am I?” and we each shared where we find ourselves in the journey and what are some of the questions, concerns, joys, and dreams with our current waypoint. Once again the conversation went into the late hours before we called it a night.

Sunday morning came early and we fixed one last big meal as we packed up. The conversation over breakfast was “Where am I going?” and we shared ways that we could pray for and encourage one another as we returned home. We switched things around for the return trip and Paul rode with me, allowing us the opportunity to connect during the drive.

Looking back, it was everything I wanted the weekend to be. Relaxing with a handful of men, eating well, having fun, watching good movies, and having great conversation as we share the journey together. I think this might be the beginning of a tradition.