Dear Family at Christ Community,

This Sunday we will arrive at the Gather’s first of many encouragements to gratefully take joy in the good gifts given to us by God at the end of chapter 2. He specifically calls us to take joy in the food and drink born of our labors. This grateful enjoyment proves pleasing to the Lord. In His good pleasure, He gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who gratefully partake.

Even greater is the Father’s enjoyment in our grateful feasting at the Lord’s Table! Given Christ’s finished work on our behalf, we get to eat and drink with greater joy knowing the significance of the bread and cup! The broken bread sweetly reminds us that we’re forgiven and free from shame and guilt. The overflowing cup revives us in resurrected newness of life. Each celebration of communion nourishes us to draw us one step closer to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. As David Gibson writes in Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End:

“The sheer number of times Jesus and food are mentioned together is quite staggering. The reason is that he is the ultimate Preacher, the true wise man; he is the embodiment and fulfillment of the vision of life that the Preacher in Ecclesiastes has been holding out to us—God’s good world is there to be enjoyed in relationship with others, and we eat and drink together now in anticipation of our feasting together then. Every meal is a foretaste, an appetizer, for the banquet yet to come.”

Please come this Sunday prepared to gratefully enjoy the elements from the Lord’s Table! Expect the Holy Spirit to nourish you for the Now and the Not Yet in Christ! Anticipate God’s good gifts of wisdom, knowledge, and joy!

In Christ,
Cameron