Luke 14:16-24 2024/12/29 Osaka Church
Christ is born!
People cannot live without eating. If they do not eat, they will gradually lose weight and eventually become just skin and bones and die. Everyone knows this.
However, we completely forget that the same is true when people “really live” as humans.
I used a very vague expression, “really live,” but in reality, it is very difficult to feel what it means to “really live,” let alone to properly express it in words. But on the other hand, when we are “not really living,” we feel this acutely. When we are lethargic, lonely, sulking, hating… we are not “really living.” Even if we are living a fairly “happy” life, in the back of our minds, we have a vague feeling that “this is not real,” and it makes us feel uncomfortable. These “anxieties” that we are missing the point show us that “truly living” is not just an expression, but something that actually exists and can happen.
As long as “truly living” is “living,” we cannot live without eating food. Even if you are full of energy and live a “fulfilling” life, if you try to live without external nutrition and only feed on what you currently have, your knowledge, beliefs, experiences, and pride, eventually all of that will be consumed, and in the end, just like the excitement of being drunk and then sobering up, everything will start to seem meaningless, and you will eventually become “thin.” You may even die.
Many people live their lives believing that various “unreal” things are “real.”
To us who have lost sight of “truly living,” God offers his body through Christ as “real food” for “truly living,” saying, “Take this and eat it.” Moreover, God does not simply provide us with a meal to obtain nutrition; as the Gospel that has just been read shows, he invites us to a banquet that he himself hosts.
This is because to sing, praise, and give thanks for the food that God gives us – this world, this time, this life, this daily life – as a gift of love from God and an expression of God’s love for us, and to share in this banquet of loving fellowship as a gathering assembled by God – is what it means to “truly live.”
When the Lord Jesus comes again to this world at the end of the world, we will be resurrected with new bodies and be enveloped in the splendor of the new heaven and new earth. The banquet that will be held there, where “God will dwell with man, and they will be God’s people, and God himself will be with them (Revelation 21:3),” is here and now, as God’s “special grace.” This is the Eucharist, where we gather together to praise and thank the Lord, and share His body and blood. This is the Church. This is a life nourished by the Lord’s Eucharistic Bread and Blood and guided by His Word.
Those who have power in this world, who live this life in a fun, clever and skillful way, made various excuses and did not respond to God’s invitation. And as today’s Gospel tells us, “the poor, the disabled, the blind, the lame,” that is, we who are sick, clumsy at life, deeply hurt by sin, and have lived our lives groping around in the darkness, have unexpectedly been invited to this feast of faith. The joy at the end of time of “really living” promised to believers is given to us right now.
Christ is born!