III.
The Feast. "Wherefore let us keep the feast."
1. "Wherefore," exclaims the Apostle (and remember that " Wherefore " loses its force unless we have appropriated to our- selves the benefit of the Paschal sacrifice), " let us keep the feast." When we know that for us the Paschal blood has been shed, that word "wherefore" indicates a logical conclusion which must follow from Gospel premises ; and this inference is so patent and powerful, that there is no escape from it. " Christ our passover is sacrificed for us : wherefore let us keep the feast."
2. The "feast" alluded to in these words is neither the
1 Marcus Dods.
188 FOR THE FEAST
Passover of the Law nor a Communion season of the Christian Church. It is the whole life of the followers of Jesus, as that life is led in Him, and as, in it all, they are partakers of His joy. Their Paschal Lamb is for them always slain. For them the incense of Christ's offering continually ascends before the throne of God. They have put the leaven of sin out of their hearts and lives, not for an hour only, or a day or a week, but for ever. Therefore they keep constant festival. Their whole life, with its memories of deliverance from bondage, and with the first-fruits of a spiritual harvest ripening around them in their free and independent home, has a festival light thrown over it. They always eat the flesh and drink the blood of One who never fails either to support or quicken them. The Christian Passover never ends.1
3. Two things are suggested by keeping the feast.
(1) Taking food. — For the point to be observed is this, that just as in that ancient ritual the lamb slain became the food of the Israelites, so with us the Christ who has died is to be the sustenance of our souls, and of our Christian life. "Wherefore let us keep the feast."
Feed upon Him; that is the essential central requirement for all Christian life. And what does feeding on Him mean? " How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? " said the Jews, and the answer is plain now, though so obscure then. The flesh which He gave for the life of the world in His death, must by us be taken for the very nourishment of our souls, by the simple act of faith in Him. That is the feeding which brings not only sustenance but life. Christ's death for us is the basis, but it is only the basis, of Christ's living in us, and His death for us is of no use at all to us unless He that died for us lives in us. We feed on Him by faith, which not only trusts to the Sacrifice as atoning for sin, but feeds on it as communicating and sustaining eternal life — " Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, wherefore let us keep the feast."
Again, we keep the feast when our minds feed upon Christ by contemplation of what He is, what He has done, what He is doing, what He will do ; when we take Him as " the Master-light
1 W. Milligan, in The Expositor, 3rd Ser., viii. 164.
i CORINTHIANS v. 7, 8 189
of all our seeing," and in Him, His words and works, His Passion, Kesurrection, Ascension, Session as Sovereign at the right hand of God, find the perfect revelation of what God is, the perfect discovery of what man is, the perfect disclosure of what sin is, the perfect prophecy of what man may become, the Light of light, the answer to every question that our spirits can put about the loftiest verities of God and man, the universe and the future. We feed on Christ when, with lowly submission, we habitually subject thoughts, purposes, desires, to His authority, and when we let His will flow into, and make plastic and supple, our wills. We nourish our wills by submitting them to Jesus, and we feed on Him not only when we say " Lord ! Lord ! " but when we do the things that He says. We feed on Christ, when we let His great, sacred, all-wise, all-giving, all-satisfying love flow into our restless hearts and make them still, enter into our vagrant affections and fix them on Himself.
H To feed on Christ is to get His strength into us to be our strength. You feed on the cornfield and the strength of the cornfield comes into you and is your strength. You feed on the cornfield and then go and build your house, and it is the corn- field in your strong arm that builds the house, that cuts down the trees and piles the stones and lifts the roof into its place. You feed on Christ and then go and live your life, and it is Christ in you that lives your life, that helps the poor, that tells the truth, that fights the battle, and that wins the crown.1
(2) Enjoyment — In the second place, the word suggests the thought of enjoyment. Our life is to be a feast ; that is to say, a season of continuous happy festivity. Not only when we reach that better land, and sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb ; not only then are we to be privileged to feast with Him. The feast of heaven begins on earth, and only those who know from their own experience what it is to feast with Jesus now will ever feast with Him yonder.