Babette Prepares a Feast!

Babette Hersant, in 1871,  flees a terrifying life of violence in a French commune.  She finds herself in a small village in north Denmark.

The villagers, hardened by hypocrisy and self-centeredness,  experience a loveless, cheerless religion.

She takes up residence in the home of two woeful sisters, Martine and Filippa, daughters of the founder of their bleak religious order.

Babette suddenly becomes the winner of a lottery,
(10,000 francs) and keeping her winnings a secret,
decides to offer her community an extravagant French dinner.

The lottery ticket is her only tie to her previous life in Paris -- a gift from a friend who keeps renewing it every year.

She could have used the money to return to her life in Paris, escaping from the joyless existence of her village life. She had been there 14 years and certainly going back to Paris must have had some appeal.

But, instead, she decides to gift the entire community with a fabulous meal, one that they would never have had occasion to experience.

(Babette had been a master chef during her earlier life in Paris).

Using her new wealth, she has all the necessary items shipped in by boat: ice, dishes, fine linen, cheeses and meats, cases of wine, and a very large turtle--destined for the soup pot.

The opulent dinner scene reminds us of the splendor of a wedding banquet, an image also presented for us in the Bible to describe God's fellowship with his people, when we are brought, with great rejoicing, safely into His heavenly kingdom.

The extravagant richness and joy of the meal transforms the guests from gloomy and petty souls into people who have tasted divine mercy.


Their eyes and now open, realize they are the recipients of an experience they could never have imagined.

They are changed, transformed at the magnificent display of Babette's feast.

One guest, General Lowenhielm, says, "The moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude...grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty."

God's grace is seen, by most in the room, for the first time, as God who reveals His love, even partially, in a meal prepared with love and sacrifice.

Babette's Feast was movie produced in 1987, based on a screen play written by Isak Dinesen.

What more joyous words than from the General: Grace is infinite....demands nothing from us but that we await it with confidence and acknowledge it with gratitude....

"So what", we might say, "It was just meal!"

Perhaps.

But it is a reminder of another meal, two thousand years ago, in an  upstairs room, when Jesus had dinner with His disciples....

When it was time, he sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, "You've no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God."

Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory."

He did the same with the cup, after supper, saying, "This is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you."
 (Luke 22)


God's infinite grace...explained at a simple meal, a meal prepared with love and sacrifice.

How Paul Prayed for His Friends

 How Paul prayed for his Friends at Colossae --

    "We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way" Colossians 1:9-10).

  He didn't pray they would be obedient -- we can tell from the context that they were already obedient to His Spirit. He just wants them to know His will, through the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,  and then they would obey and live lives pleasing to God "in every way"!

  We should pray that prayer for each other. God's Spirit supplies the wisdom and understanding, we obey, and then we can live our lives glorifying and pleasing Him!

  Some day we may hear His voice, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the glory of your Lord" (Matthew 25:21).

   Remember the catechism? "What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." That's how we do it!

  

Quoteworthy....The Silver Trumpets

And the LORD spoke to Moses saying: Make two silver trumpets for yourself; you shall make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movements of the camp... when you go to war in your land against the enemy who opposes you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the LORD your God, and you will be saved from your enemies. Also in the days of your gladness, in your appointed feasts...you shall blow the trumpets."
    -- Numbers 10: 2, 9, 10


Reminds me of Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan gave her a special horn to blow in times of distress.

But these silver trumpets were to be used for many things -- to call the people together, to announce travel instructions and to call out to God when facing the enemy.

And we also have two trumpets: God's Word and prayer. We can call on God when we need direction in our journey,  when we need help in opposing the enemy, and when we want to call on our friends and spiritual family members.We can read His Word and determine His path for us and find help to combat the enemy.  We can gather with our spiritual family and read His Guidebook, sharing and gleaning spiritual truth from others.

There are many trumpets in Scripture. From Exodus all the way to Revelation.

In Exodus: 

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled...the smoke billowed up like smoke from a furnace...and the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. (Exodus 19)


In Revelation there are seven trumpets mentioned. The final one:

The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven which said:


  "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever." (Revelation 19)


Remember our revival? Our special trumpet call? 

G I N Y  -- God I Need You!


And His answer? G I N Y back -- Grace Is Now Yours!


We must all have our trumpets ready as we go out into the world --


Remember these words?

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more....when the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair...when the saved on earth shall gather over on the other shore...and the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there!

We're sure anxious to hear that trumpet!

Trying to avoid God? - C S Lewis

If God exists, mere movement in space will never bring you any nearer to Him or any farther from Him that you are at this very moment.

How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid Him?

The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it.

But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) your own grievances.

Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you'd be safer to stick to the papers. You'll find the advertisements helpful, especially those with a snobbish or a sexy appeal.


About the reaching, I am a far less reliable guide. That is because I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way round; He was the hunter (or so it seemed to me) and I was the deer. He stalked me...took unerring aim, and fired.


--From The Seeing Eye, by C. S. Lewis




I think all of us who bear the name of Christ can see how God led us to Himself. How the searching of our hearts for the "something that was missing" was, in fact, the way He drew us to Him.

And now as I am older, I see that the reaching and avoiding of God that Lewis talks about applies to our daily walk with God also, as well as our original coming to Him. 

We can still try to "avoid Him." But it is truly hard.

Remember Paul's sermon in Athens at Mars Hill?

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else....God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.
                   --Acts 17:24-25, 27

It would appear that, because God revealed Himself to us in His creation and sustains us through His providence, that we have an obligation to seek Him.


I have read that the word Paul uses for "reaching out for--or feeling after" is the same Greek word that Homer used in his story about Cyclops, the giant one-eyed monster who captured Odysseus and his men and held them captive in a cave.

Odysseus got the Cyclops drunk and then blinded him with a sharp stake. Then the prisoners tried to make their escape. And Cyclops began groping around and feeling his surroundings, intending to recapture Odysseus. That's the very word Paul uses to describe how God intends for us to "seek out God...and to reach for Him."

In our sin we are as blind as Cyclops. And Paul is saying that because of God's creation we have an obligation to feel after God and seek Him, even though we cannot see Him.

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

-- James 4:8

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I will be found by you," declares the LORD.

-- Jeremiah 29:13-14

Looking for the Right Job? C S Lewis

 

                                               Looking for the Right Job?

Thoughts from C S Lewis:

"We have in our day started by getting the whole picture upside down.

Starting with the doctrine that every individual is of 'infinite value,' we then picture God as a kind of employment agency whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs.

In fact, however, the value of the individual does note lie in him. He is capable of receiving value.

He receives it by union with Christ.

There is no question of finding for him a place in the living temple which will do justice to his inherent value.

The place was there first.

The man was created for it.

He will not be truly himself until he is there."

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).