“and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the earth, and make you eat with the inheritance of your father Jacob.” Isaiah 58:14

Eat – Do you want to really celebrate Christmas?  Then enjoy an inheritance meal, served up by God Himself.  It won’t be the usual turkey or ham.  It won’t have sweet potatoes and green bean casserole.  But it will be exceedingly nutritious and eternally beneficial.  And you won’t have to be dainty about eating.  This meal is a ravenous feast.

We met the word ‘akal in August.  Devour, consume, eat.  Licking the plate clean.  The holy fire that consumes the sacrifice.  The wrath of God that devours His enemies.  This is a fearsome word.  A word fit for a Christmas meal that reaches back through the ages to father Jacob.  What will be served at this ravenous feast?  Your inheritance.  Your nakhalah, the portion given you by legacy, passed down to you as a member of the family.  At this Christmas dinner, God passes around the dish of inheritance.  Help yourself.  But be ready for a surprise.

God has prepared a feast of celebration for all of those called to be His priests, His representatives in a foreign land.  That’s you and me.  That’s every single person who is adopted into the family through the obedience of the One born on this night.  But here’s the surprise.  Turn to Numbers 18:20.  God is passing around the inheritance and the inheritance is Himself. Grab hold of that platter.  Take a big piece.  There’s more than enough.  Feast yourself on God.  We are finally home, back at the Garden when He gave the very first command, ‘akol tokel, literally, “in feasting you shall feast” (Genesis 2:15 -  see August 13).  This is the night of feasting, feasting on the glory and wonder and love of God, feasting on His provision and plan, feasting on the day our return to the Kingdom was sealed.  This is the Redemption Feast.

Eat!  Rejoice!  And sing with the angels, “Peace on earth and good food for men”

“then you will take delight in the LORD” Isaiah 58:14

Delight – What is more rewarding than seeing the face of a small child opening a brightly wrapped gift?  The excitement, the joy, the anticipation and the sheer delight portrayed in that countenance is more thrilling than all rest of the festivities.  Why?  What makes the delight of children so special, so different than our own reactions to gifts?  Could it be that for children too young to have expectations, the experience is so new, so fresh that it releases the pure joy of living?  Could it be that when we were too young to know better, the world was still alive with lovely treasures?  And what happened to us?  Over the years we replaced exuberant thankfulness with expected reciprocity.  We numbed ourselves to life’s delight.  We painted gray where the rainbow used to fall.

God wants to restore life to its delightful, childlike amazement.  But He knows a secret even more powerful than the one that brings a smile to the face of a child at Christmas.  Delight at any age is found only one place.  In Him.  No substitutes will long remain outside the gray painted arms of expectation and quid-pro-quo.  All that we can collect, all that we can share will eventually amount to nothing more than one more time around the block.  Only God can surprise every day anew.  Until I find my delight in the Lord, I will forever hunt for the end of the rainbow.

Christmas is upon us.  Tomorrow is the celebration of the birth of the King.  The angels rejoiced, delighted with God’s surprising, spectacular restoration.  The shepherds worshipped.  The heavens shouted out His glory.  Today we are asked to consider the place of delight in our lives.  Will Christmas arrive with an overflowing thanksgiving from within, with an unquenchable delight in our God?  Will we be once more thrilled to the depths of our souls with His majesty, His compassion, His long-suffering mercy?  Will we fall to our knees in eternal gratitude with faces radiant from His presence?

Christmas.  We can have the world’s substitute.  Presents, tinsel, football, tension, conflict, pretense, counting, comparison.  Or we can have God’s surprise.  Rejoicing.  Thankfulness.  Submission.  Humility.  Delight.  Which will you find tomorrow?  Probably the same one that you hold today.