A magnificent menu

Part of a series inspired by experiences and sights in Kauai, the Hawaiian islands.
When my husband and I go to a restaurant to eat, we are quite the conservative connoisseurs.  An incurable coupon-clipper, I usually have that little slip of paper that gets us a cheaper meal. Or if it appears that the portions are generous, we’ll ask for an extra plate to split an entré. 

When our son and his wife “gifted” us with a trip to Kauai as thanks for more than a year of day-care for grandkids, they included a daily “breakfast buffet” which was beyond belief for “sumptuous.”  It became our main meal of the day, with conservative fast-food orders and fruit from the island’s “farmer’s market” supplying other meal needs.  One feature was a made-to-order omelet created by a man who knew exactly how to flip the cooking mixture to keep it fluffy and tender. I thought of the omelets I make at home, just a notch above edible Frisbees.  And the fruit table.  Oooo. Ahhhh. Tree-ripened mangoes, papayas and pineapple.  Ohhh, wonderful.  Not to mention other choices to satisfy every taste.

A few years ago I wrote a little book that compared Heaven to a literal home, using scriptural motifs to try to imagine just what is ahead for us. I was inspired to think about Heaven’s banquet hall by a prophetic passage in Revelation 19:9:

Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!
In imagining  the banquet hall that might await in Heaven, I recalled a religious poster popular a few decades ago, which showed an elegantly-set table at the seashore, reaching far into the sunset horizon.  Nobody was seated at it yet.  The plates and goblets were ready for whatever was ahead.

I thought  David’s Psalm 63, which includes a note that it was written “when he was in the desert of Judah.” That could apply to two times, either pre-reign as he tried to elude murderous King Saul, or during a later turmoil as king when his son Absalom was trying to steal the throne, and David escaped to the wilderness.  In both cases, there was no royal palace dining hall, only a primitive place outside to cook and eat.  Rather than gripe about his circumstances, David wrote:
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. (Psalm 63:5)
Now eating the poorest of earthly foods, David focused on the blessings of God’s great love.

Fast-forward to the time of Isaiah. There were now two warring nations in the former Promised Land, both to fall to foreign enemies.   Still, the prophets appealed to the people to return to God.  Isaiah cast his spiritual invitation to return to God in the symbol of good food, offered without cost:

Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. (Isaiah 55:20)

 David called it “the richest of foods”; Isaiah, the “richest of fare.”  Through the symbolism of food, they were identifying God with supplying in generous supply the very best to sustain His children.  The sweet fellowship we may enjoy through prayer, scripture, and like-minded Christian friends is but a tiny appetizer of what’s ahead. 

I know this: if I thought the buffet in Kauai was beyond wonderful, I have a lot more to look forward to in that realm we call Heaven.  What is now a mystery, in the presence of the God will surpass everything, satisfying us entirely as we praise Him face to face.