The Table Prepared For Us - Pt. I
The Eucharistic Banquet in the Old Testament
Banquets appear throughout the Bible. The bible begins with a banquet, generously offered by God in the first temple – the garden of Eden (Gen 2:15-17). And the bible ends with a banquet – again, generously offered by God in the temple of the new heavens and the new earth (Rev 19:6-8, 21-22). As Alexander Schmemann, the 20th century Orthodox liturgist and priest, puts it:
“The image of the banquet remains, throughout the whole Bible, the central image of life. It is the image of life at its creation and also the image of life at its end and fulfilment…” and it is thus the image of the life of the “whole world”.
the Eucharistic Banquet itself serves as, “our sacramental entrance into the risen life of Jesus Christ” and it is through this banquet that we “offer to him of ourselves, of our life, and of the whole world.”
[Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 17, 35, 45.]
As the central image for fellowship and life in the Bible, the theme of the banquet provides the framework for our understanding of the Eucharistic Banquet celebrated at the centre of every Christian liturgy.
To begin our survey of the banquet throughout Scripture, we can identify various kinds of Banquets.
Festal/ Worship Banquets
Victory Banquets
Messianic Banquets
Wedding Banquets
Banquets of Hospitality
All of which are associated with things of blessing, rest, worship, victory and celebration. We find all of these summarized in the famous words of Psalm 23:
“You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
[Ps 23:5-6]
Here, the Lord “prepares a table” the theme of the banquet. This table is prepared “in the presence of enemies’ – clearly a victory motif. The Psalmist speaks of “anointing” and “overflowing” – clearly rest and blessing. There is a sense of celebration – “goodness and mercy” and finally, of worship – ‘I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”. All of these themes finds their fullness in the Lord’s Supper, but in order to grasp this, we need to survey the various banquets in the Old Testament first.
The Banquet of Eden
As we stated, the bible begins with, among many things, a banquet.
And Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat⌋ from it you shall surely die.”
[Gen 2:15-17]
In Eden, God sets before humanity a banquet – an all you can eat buffet from the bounty of the garden. But the enjoyment of this banquet comes with responsibility – the only part of the banquet that is off limits for Adam and Eve is the forbidden fruit – God warns them that if they eat it, it will bring them death separation from God, rather than the life and fellowship they experience with him at the garden banquet. This is a show of God’s love and generosity to humanity - all they have to do is trust him.
Unfortunately, we’re all familiar with the story - even though God had warned them, an uninvited guest usurps God’s command and seduces humanity into eating of this forbidden part of the banquet. Resulting in the exile of humanity from Eden and from God’s table.
Following the expulsion from Eden, humanity are no longer ‘invited to the banquet’. Instead of having access to the abundance of the garden, humanity must work and toil for the meagre scraps of the earth – “bread from the ground” (Gen 3:18-19). All they can do is hope that one day, God will make a way, and restore them to his table.
Abraham and Melchizedek
Fast forward a little, the bible picks up with a remnant of the family of Adam – Abram and Sarah. These nomads embody the restless wandering of humanity outside of the garden. Called out of their home land by God, the family travel through the wilderness of Canaan and northern Egypt for their entire story, holding onto faith in God’s far off promises. Throughout are many glimpses of Eden – a meeting with God in the shade of the trees here, altars built and places dedicate to worship there, and of course, a famous feast of promise under the oaks of Mamre. While we don’t have time to go into all the details of Abraham’s story, I want to focus on two specific and important portraits in his story that highlight our theme of the banquet.
The first is a very short and obscure, but nonetheless important, part of the early Abram narratives: that being his encounter with a mysterious priest king name ‘Melchizedek’:
And [Abram] returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him… and Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. (He was the priest of God Most High). And he blessed him and said,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Maker of heaven and earth.
And blessed be God Most High
who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
[Gen 14:18-20]
Of the may types of Banquets we see throughout Scripture, this one most clearly represents a Victory Banquet. God has just delivered Abram’s enemies into his hands and granted him victory (no small detail mind you – he had defeated entire armies with as little as 318 men…) On his way back to Mamre, a mysterious priest king from a the nearby city of Salem greets him and offers a banquet.
On one level, Melchizedek’s banquet is certainly a celebration of the victory of Abram, but it also reminds us of the priestly banquet in Eden, and Melchizedek’s blessing of Abram recalls God’s blessing of Adam in the garden. He even brings bread and wine to the table, which point forward to a very similar meal of fellowship set before God’s presence in the future tabernacle of Israel.
But more so than this, Melchizedek’s bread and wine serve another function – they are a ‘thanksgiving’ offering – a תּוֹדָה ‘todah’ in Hebrew. What’s interesting though, is that in Greek this is called a εὐχαριστέω a eucharist – the same word we use to describe the Lord’s Supper. For this reason, many of the Early Church fathers Melchizedek’s banquet with the Eucharist of Jesus Christ:
“…in the priest Melchizedek, we see the sacrament of the Lord prefigured…
Our Lord Jesus Christ offered the very same thing that Melchizedek had offered, bread and wine, that is, his body and blood”
[St. Cyprian of Carthage Ep. 62.4]
“For here first appeared the sacrifice which is now offered to God by Christians in the whole wide world. [Foretold] by the prophets and fulfilled in Christ…”
[St. Augustine City of God 16.22]
The Victory Banquet of Abram and Melchizedek does a lot in the way of preparing us for the Lord’s Supper, but perhaps more so than this short story, the other themes of blessing, rest, and worship associated with the banquet are more clearly portrayed in the famous story of Abraham’s extravagant feast with the mysterious ‘three visitors’ at Mamre, a couple of chapters later in Genesis.
The Three Visitors
And Yahweh appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre. And he was sitting in the doorway of the tent at the heat of the day. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing near him. And he saw them and ran from the doorway of the tent to meet them. And he bowed down to the ground. And he said, “My lord, if I have found favour in your eyes do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest under the tree. And let me bring a piece of bread, then refresh yourselves. Afterward you can pass on, once you have passed by with your servant.” Then they said, “Do so as you have said.”
[Gen 18:1-5]
Just as Melchizedek had in the previous story, here, Abraham offers hospitality to what he perceives as weary travellers. It is debated as to whether Abraham actually knows that these visitors are God and two angels - I personally tend to think that he doesn’t recognize them until after the meal - but either way the story is still an excellent portrait of Abraham’s hospitality and generosity. This is made clear in the small detail of Abraham offering bread (the Hebrew is literally ‘crumbs’) and water initially – but when laying the table, he does the opposite. Far from fetching crumbs and water he hastened to his wife and servants, ‘Quick! Prepare a feast!’.
Then Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and he said, “Quickly—make three seahs of fine flour for kneading and make bread cakes!” And Abraham ran to the cattle and took a ⌊calf⌋, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, and he made haste to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk, and the calf which he prepared, and set it before them. And he was standing by them under the tree while they ate.
[Gen 18:6-8]
Though he lives in the wilderness – in exile, scrounging for his food like Adam, toiling to make ‘crumbs of bread’ – Abraham prepares a lavish feast – a banquet fit for Eden. And like we saw in the brief account of the banquet of Melchizedek, the author weaves subtle priestly themes into his description of Abraham’s banquet:
Sarah’s otherwise seemingly mundane actions of baking and cooking use liturgical and ceremonial terms from Leviticus. קֶ֣מַח סֹ֔לֶת “fine flour” is used elsewhere in reference to cereal offerings and the bread of the presence (Lev 24:5). Abraham’s choosing the “finest bull”, as well as being an extremely generous action (one bull is a lot of meat for three people) fits with the regulations for whole burnt offerings. But he doesn’t stop there - dairy products were highly priced, and as such חֶמְאָ֜ה וְחָלָ֗ב ‘yoghurt and milk’ was a common offering to the gods in Abraham’s day.
We would find it difficult then, to not see Abraham as a priest in this description, hustling to make a banquet that seems an awful lot like worship. He even serves his guests personally and stands by to attend to them while they eat, something that might remind us of the priests in the temple. Thus, while Abraham is unaware, his hospitality is also a perfect example of worship in the presence of God – it is a correction of Adam and Eve’s failures at the banquet in Eden.
Giving us a glimpse at the reality of the return to Eden and the Lord’s table, God dines with his servants under the oaks of Mamre and blesses them, like he had done with Adam and Eve in the garden. The banquet at Mamre is one step in the long journey of humanities return to the table of the Lord.
The Banquet on the Mountain
There is much more that could be said regarding the Old Testament’s portrait of the banquet, but for the sake of time, lets look at one more.
In the book of Exodus, after leading Israel out of Egypt under his servant Moses, God brings his people to a rugged mountain in the wilderness. Here, on the dusty peaks of Sinai, God does something special – he gets married. From Exodus 19 all the way to chapter 40, we camp out with the Israelites at the foot of Sinai. The long narrative goes into detail about the stipulations of covenant between Yahweh and his people. God dedicates himself to his bride, and they in turn dedicate themselves to him.
Following the people’s agreement that “we will do and obey all the Yahweh has spoken” [Ex 24:7], God invites the elders of Israel and Moses to come up the mountain.
Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel
[Ex 24:1]
In inviting the leadership of Israel up the mountain though, God warns them;
“Only worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.”
[Ex 24:2]
It seems that God is sticking to the script, that ‘no one can see my face’ and that only Moses has special access to his presence (Ex 33:11). But when we actually get to the scene where Moses and Aaron and the elders come before God, we are surprised to read that:
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy from the elders of Israel went up. And they saw the God of Israel, and what was under his feet was like sapphire tile work and like the very heavens for clearness. And toward the leaders of the Israelites he did not stretch out his hand, and they beheld God, and they ate, and they drank.
[Ex 24:9-11]
Even though God had warned that the elders must worship from afar, here we read that God’s presence is open to them – they ‘saw God’ and not just that, but they ‘ate with him’. What do we make of this?
Other than a radical ‘changing of the rules’ – this shows the grace of God in the theme of the banquet. Notice that there is no reference to a banquet in God’s initial command? Only that ‘you will worship’. Yet when they arrive, God has set the table for them and invites them to sit at his table and dine with him. A wedding feast is in order –God has opened the way for his people to access the Lord’s table and to dine with him as they once had in the garden.
But while this portrait of the leaders of Israel dining with God might seem like our perfect return to Eden, it is unfortunately very short lived. If we kept reading the story, we see, tragically, that only a couple of chapters later, while Moses remains on the mountain to receive the instruction from God regarding the building of the tabernacle so that God can dwell in the midst of his people – Israel quickly lose sight of God and build the golden calf - The marriage has literally just been consecrated – the wedding banquet celebrated – and Israel falls straight into adultery.
But that’s not all. We are also faced with the sobering realization that, of the leaders who approach God and partake of the priestly meal on the mountain, only two are named and they are none other than Nadab and Abihu – you may recall that these were the same two men who were later killed in the tabernacle for offering ‘strange fire’ upon the incense altar. (Lev 10:1-3) – why? Because they had misused the abundance of the Lord’s house, gotten drunk on the sacred wine, and entered God’s presence improperly. Just like Adam and Eve in the garden, the two priests had disobeyed God, and suffered the ultimate price for it. It’s a sobering fact – these two men beheld God and partook of the sacred meal, but they later approached God falsely and were killed for it. It reminds me of Paul’s equally sobering words regarding the eucharist;
“let a person examine himself, and in this way let him eat from the bread and let him drink from the cup. For the one who eats and drinks, if he does not recognize the body, eats and drinks judgment against himself. Because of this, many are weak and sick among you, and several have died.”
[1 Cor 11:28-30]
Thus, while the image of the banquet on Sinai is a wonderful consummation of the banquets throughout Genesis that had prepared the way for the full entrance of humanity again into the garden banquet of Eden, it also serves as sobering reminder of the sacredness of that privilege. And we are painfully reminded that humanity, no matter how hard God tries, remains largely incapable of recognizing the holiness of the banquet, and continue to abuse God’s gracious provision.
In order for God to allow access to his table once more… Something has to shift.