I was reading John 21 yesterday morning. Of the precious few stories we hear of interactions with the resurrected Christ, two are about food. It strikes me as interesting that Christ conquers death, and one of his first acts as the Firstborn of the New Creation is to eat, whether with unsuspecting travellers on the road to Emmaus, or with sleep-deprived fishermen who are winded from a miraculous catch of 153 fish. “Come and have breakfast,” he tells them.
There is so much sanctifying of eating going on in Scripture. Levitical sacrifices were mostly feasts, as if God were sanctifying one of the most mundane acts of our existence. He makes the mundane holy, which is why there are so many laws about pots and storage and cleanliness.
And one of the few stories that all four gospels contain (up there with crucifixion and resurrection) is Christ feeding a hungry crowd of people. If I were Catholic I would read that Eucharistically, but even though I’m not (yet), I still find it interesting.
Then Christ dies and rises again, takes on Death and defeats it in the same act, begins the process of restoring creation, and he makes breakfast for his friends.
I’m notoriously bad about eating (or more precisely about not eating). Sometimes I seem to be too well indoctrinated with some form of Christian dualism that tells me that I need to focus on ‘spiritual’ things, and the physical things are less important. But the Incarnation itself, to say nothing of the specific things that the incarnated Jesus did, tells me that dualism is wrong, that the physical has become the holy. And that means food too.
“Come and have breakfast.” I suppose I should.
There is so much sanctifying of eating going on in Scripture. Levitical sacrifices were mostly feasts, as if God were sanctifying one of the most mundane acts of our existence. He makes the mundane holy, which is why there are so many laws about pots and storage and cleanliness.
And one of the few stories that all four gospels contain (up there with crucifixion and resurrection) is Christ feeding a hungry crowd of people. If I were Catholic I would read that Eucharistically, but even though I’m not (yet), I still find it interesting.
Then Christ dies and rises again, takes on Death and defeats it in the same act, begins the process of restoring creation, and he makes breakfast for his friends.
I’m notoriously bad about eating (or more precisely about not eating). Sometimes I seem to be too well indoctrinated with some form of Christian dualism that tells me that I need to focus on ‘spiritual’ things, and the physical things are less important. But the Incarnation itself, to say nothing of the specific things that the incarnated Jesus did, tells me that dualism is wrong, that the physical has become the holy. And that means food too.
“Come and have breakfast.” I suppose I should.
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