It was Easter Eve. I was checking out at the grocery store and the cashier asked me what my favorite holiday was. I never got to answer since she and the bagger agreed the best holidays are the ones with the most food and celebration.
Easter morning was glorious. We worshipped with intense passion over our risen Lord and took the Lords Supper. On Easter, usually I sing softly since I don’t sing well- but not this morning. I didn’t care who heard me. A young man got up from his seat and began to dance. Just a few months prior he had been a drug addict, but recently he had been set free. He had something to dance about. On the other side of the room, grandparents got up and started to dance. Their grandson had come to the Lord after years of prayer.
After taking the bread and the cup, my heart literally raced with excitement. I closed my eyes and suddenly, I saw before me the grandest table I had ever seen and it was bountifully overflowing. Thousands and thousands of people of every race and kind flowed into the magnificent banquet. Many were actually wearing white garments. The excitement was more than I could bear in my human thoughts, the lame, blind, deaf, poor, abused and tortured were now all healed running into the party of all parties. I started to cry. It was the most grand and glorious party I had ever seen. I knew God was giving me a glimpse into the future- to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. All too soon I was back to reality but something was different- joy filled every ounce of my being. I had had a glimpse into the future of Glory.
God has been preparing us for the great Wedding Supper of the Lamb since the Israelites first Passover supper, before their exodus out of slavery in Egypt (Exodus 11 &12). God told Moses to tell every Israelite family to sacrifice a lamb that night and to mark the door of their home with its blood. On that night the angel of death passed over every home marked by the blood of the lamb.
Just as God protected the Israelites from physical death by the blood of the lamb that night, it was also a foreshadowing of the ultimate sacrifice that would be shed, the blood of Christ, the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29)- in the future for the salvation of all who would receive Him.
At Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, before his crucifixion, they were celebrating the Passover supper which was the first Lord’s Supper. He tells his disciples (in Luke 22:15-20) that He had fervent desire to eat the Passover with them before he suffered and that He would not eat of it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. He told them that the cup of the fruit of the vine and the bread that they broke together was the new covenant and to do it in remembrance of Him. Jesus was excited because He knew that because of His sacrifice- one day we would all eat together again in His kingdom. God’s great master plan, leading us to the ultimate Wedding Supper of the Lamb, started at the first Passover supper. Now we celebrate the future glory of that day when we partake of the Lord’s Supper remembering what Jesus, the “Lamb of God,” did for us as the ultimate sacrifice. This reminds us of his promise to return and we will all eat together, as the bride. So, the Lord’s Supper is truly a rehearsal dinner for the Wedding Supper of the Lamb!
We’ll enter through the gates of splendor, onto the streets paved with gold and before us- the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will usher us into the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. This will be the greatest feast and celebration of all time. All saints from the beginning of time, to the end of the age will be there.
Revelation 19: 6-9
“And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage supper of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.’ Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’”
I think I’ll go back, visit my cashier at the grocery store and tell her that Easter is my favorite holiday, and why. If her favorite holidays are the ones with the most food and celebration, I better see if her name is on the guest list to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb!
Sharon Glasgow