Glorifying God in Christmas Feasting

12/11/2016

Our Christmas season is given to not a few abuses, from extravagant spending to gluttony. It is with a note of caution, then, that we consider glorifying God in feasting. It isn’t only our scale in January we will have to answer to for how we eat. Gluttony is when we ignore our physical health, the needs of the poor, and our devotion to God to find our satisfaction in eating and drinking. Christmas was once a season of fasting (Advent) followed by twelve days of celebration and feasting; along the way we have forgotten the practices of self-denial.

Nevertheless, feasting is also a spiritual discipline. Throughout Israel’s history, they were Law-bound to have parties, to observe regular annual celebrations with feasting: “There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice…” (Deut 12:7). We’re no longer under the old covenant law, but we’re still physical as well as spiritual beings, and physical expressions of gladness can help us to enrich our spiritual joy at the coming of Christ.

But ultimately, the purpose is to increase our expectation of his future coming. When Jesus was here on earth, he ate and drank; he multiplied five loaves and two fish to feed 5000 people, not so that they could walk away from him satisfied but so that they might find their sufficiency in him. When asked why his disciples didn’t fast, he answered that they couldn’t fast while the bridegroom was with them; it was time to celebrate. Yet he said that when he was away from them, they would fast. When we feast at Christmas with special foods and festive meals, it is to be a celebration that he has come and he will come again, and when he does, we will have the greatest feast, the biggest party any of us has ever had (Rev 19:7). But we should not forget to balance this with our practice of fasting, remembering that our satisfaction is not yet here; we still wait for the coming of our Beloved. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31).