Feasting

We have a bizarre relationship with food.  I don't believe that has always been true of people.  From eating disorders to 'diabesity' our culture has a love-hate relationship with food.  I think part of the reason for this, resides in our spiritual and emotional emptiness and poverty.  (After all, why would people let Jillian Michaels spew her psycho-babble in their sweaty faces on national TV). We are both spiritual and physical beings and these two aspects of our personhood interact.  If I feel emotionally empty or spiritually hungry, cheesecake may be mistaken for love.
My son Guy runs 60-90 miles a week.  Though quite skinny, no one I know eats like he does.  He epitomizes hunger for fuel.  Food really is his fuel and his body is craving calories all the time.  In the same way, we try to fuel our emotional lives often with food, or abuse of food.
We are all spiritually hungry and poor, and we all are on a search to fill that hunger.  It is no small thing that Jesus came as the 'Bread of Life'.  Soul-satisfaction resides in Him.
Which gets me to feasting...
I think most evangelicals have the wrong view of feasting.  We think fasting is spiritual and feasting is physical, maybe even sinful.  I don't think that is right.  Feasting actually is just as faithful as fasting.
When we feast in light of the gospel, the delight of flavors, the sensations of satiety bear witness to the abundance of grace that is ours.  It reminds us of heaven, when we sit at the Lord's table to be full forevermore.
Every Christmas, the Shelby's roast a standing rib roast.  we make Yorkshire pudding and we set a plum pudding on fire.  Those are very heavy foods.  We do it to proclaim to our bodies and souls that Jesus fills us with good things and that a day will come when not only our tears are wiped away, but we will be satisfied.
It tastes pretty good too.