Surely you know that cinnamon rolls are not the point.
Neither is bacon or hot coffee or waffles or biscuits and sausage gravy. These are not central to Sunday’s celebration. Yet, they matter. This needn’t be primary to serve a valued function. We often say that though we fast for a reason, we also feast for a reason. The first phrase of Psalm 23:5 may help us understand what that reason is.
As you know, we’ve been working through this psalm in our weekly note. You’ve noticed, probably, that the metaphor shifted in verse five from “shepherd” to “host”. A prepared table. An overflowing cup. A house where we dwell forever. The symbolism doesn’t hold because sheep don’t eat at tables, drink from cups or dwell in houses (unless you live in Scott County, which is an altogether different story). David said this:
“…you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…”
I’ll admit that this phrase from the 23rd has always been the most puzzling to me (and for that reason, the least considered and applied). The strange juxtaposition of a meal eaten in the presence of enemies has always been hard for me to picture. The image that comes to my mind was of a war zone – smoldering, bombed-out buildings, empty streets, troops ducking in and out of doorways – not unlike the awful footage coming in from Mariupol and Kharkiv. Yet, in the middle of all this chaos is a well-set table, covered with white linen and set with silver, crystal stemware, cloth napkins, and a nice centerpiece. Strange. That odd coupling of conflict and feasting seemed incongruent — like something I’d see in a vivid fever dream — a table set in the presence of my enemies.
The more probable picture is of a victory celebration where, in Derek Kidner’s words, “the enemies are present as captives; an accession feast with defeated rivals as reluctant guests”. Think of a Roman triumph where a victor is praised and the beaten opponent is disgraced. A taunt.
Paul described something like this in Colossians 2. “You (who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh) God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
What David rejoiced over in v. 5 is his experience of being brought through the conflict, given the victory and freed to feast in the presence of a vanquished foe. And what David knew, we know. God has “prepared a table for [us] in the presence of our enemies”.
I may not be able to name all of your enemies (though I hope that it is a short list). I can, however, name one. I know this enemy well because it is also mine. It is the enemy of every son or daughter of Adam. “ . . . as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned . . .” (Romans 5:12). Death is no friend. It’s an enemy and is identified as such by the apostle. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death”, Paul said. (1 Corinthians 15:26).
Death is an enemy – a horrible enemy – and we hate it. Sometimes it strikes with sudden, violent force. At other times, it creeps in slowly – cruelly stripping its victims of vitality and dignity. It does its sinister work in the pediatric wing and in Alzheimer’s units and on highways and in quiet rooms where despair smothers the vulnerable. It indiscriminately targets the young and the aged, the poor and affluent, the known and forgotten. Last year, it visited Austin East High School again and again and again. It’s seen in the theatre of war and in tsunamis and in abortion clinics and in the drought-stricken plains of South Sudan. It separates friends and ends marriages and breaks the hearts of mothers and fathers. Even now, it’s doing its slow, degenerative work in all of us. Death is an enemy – a horrible enemy – and we hate it. Its most troubling feature is that it can extend beyond the temporal into the eternal and is the altogether reasonable consequence of man’s defiance of God.
And this is why we love . . . love . . . love the gospel!
As menacing and strong as death is, it is also conquerable. More accurately, it is conquered.
Peter preached it. “This same Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God . . . crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:23-24). And it is precisely that truth that informs Paul’s message to Corinth, “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:51-56).
No. Cinnamon rolls are not the point. But they do matter. They matter because of what they say about all we believe. If what we say happened actually happened, then we absolutely will feast and for good reason. Our champion has overthrown our principal fear object, and that makes our Resurrection Day Breakfast more than just a good meal.
It is a taunt. A celebration. It is a jeering declaration of our hope and of the grave’s sting-less-ness. It’s a table prepared in the presence of our enemy!
I hope to see you there.