Ecclesiastes 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry…

Oktoberfest is a sixteen-day festival held each year in Munich, Bavaria although it is now often imitated around the world, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where great beer abounds. It was originally held in 1810 to honor the marriage of King Ludwig I and Therese of Bavaria.

Mars Hill Lake City upheld the tradition with a party October 22nd and nearly burst at the seams… not in a gluttonous way, but simply overflowing with 150 participants. Members brought themed dishes and a wide variety of mustards and sauerkraut cleared the sinuses. The smell of cabbage, potato pancakes, and bratwurst filled the room, washed down with some home-brewed libations courtesy of church members. Guests joined us from our neighborhoods and workplaces and it was a pleasure to have our feast be an unqualified success.

Christians believe that feasting is not simply something we do, but something we were designed to do. Biblically, feasting is a spiritual discipline, the celebration of God with good company, good food, and good drink. Christian reformer John Calvin said “if we study… why (God) has created the various kinds of food, we shall find that it was his intention not only to provide for our needs, but likewise for our pleasure and our delight… For, if this were not true, the Psalmist would not enumerate among the divine blessings, ‘wine that makes glad the heart of man...’” Martin Luther said, “The selling of bad beer is a crime against Christian love.”

Feasting was demonstrated in the life of Jesus; being a good Jew Jesus participated in the various annual Jewish feasts, and was even accused by critics of eating, drinking, and fraternizing far too much (Luke 7:34). His first recorded miracle is attending a lavish wedding and helping the groom save face when the wine runs out – Jesus turns water into wine that is so good he helped reinforce the idea of saving the best for last.

Oktoberfest’s wedding origin is also appropriate for the Christian, as marriage is a mirror for why we celebrate. Not only was Jesus’ first miracle adding oomph to a wedding party, but the reconciliation of man with his Creator is likened to a wedding as God’s people are brought into relationship through spiritual union with the resurrected Jesus Christ. We understand weddings are tiny portraits of the way in which we become part of the family of God. Eternity beyond this life begins with a big feast commemorating the covenant relationship of Jesus and the church:

Revelation 19:9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

It is this belief in our eternality that fuels Christian parties and makes them true celebration. Many times, parties in our culture are NOT celebration at all but rather fall tragically short as variant forms of distraction from true celebration:

Compensation – operating with a sense of entitlement and self-worship that sees ourselves as the rightful center of parties and celebrations as though the universe owes us or we have earned it.

Medication – using intoxication and a barrage of stimuli to medicate ourselves against depression and the abusive rigors of this world without any real hope.

Obfuscation – engaging in frequent partying to avoid thinking about the deep things of life including our depravity, our position in creation, our creator, and our ultimate fate.

Fabrication – the formation and accrual of rituals, tradition, civic activities, etc. to fabricate a sense of meaning and purpose to life and community, a rally-point in the vacuum of any real destiny or ultimate direction.

Celebration – truly relaxing in the love of a real God who cares for us and loves us and is truly the founder of every feast, with warm knowledge that every party in this life is ultimately practice for eternity and a foretaste of the future:

Isaiah 25:6-9 On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine- the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord , we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”