This Hallelujah Banquet

by Eugene H. Peterson

  Confirmation runs into communion. Discipleship becomes fellowship.

  The call to commitment is followed by the invitation to the Lord’s Supper. We remember with special poignancy the Last Supper of our Lord. On that night, commitment and communion were inextricably joined.

  Yes, there was betrayal at the table as Judas slipped out, unwilling to go all the way in commitment. But there was also a great exchange of strength at the table. All the disciples were weak and faithless. But their weak commitments were confirmed at the table—and as they received Christ and followed him, they grew in stature. They went from strength to strength. Our Lord knocked at their lives, they opened, and he entered.

  Let us do the same.

  Amen.

  Skip Notes

  *1 Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, ed. Richard Crouter, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1996).

  *2 John Stott, What Christ Thinks of the Church: Preaching from Revelation 1 to 3 (Carlisle, UK: Langham Preaching Resources, 2019), 89.

  *3 Editor’s note: Though this quote is frequently referenced in sermons and attributed to Saint Francis, the original source is notoriously elusive. Among other places, it is referenced in The Interpreter’s Bible, ed. George Arthur Buttrick, vol. 8, Luke and John (New York: Abingdon, 1952), 323. Buttrick was one of Eugene’s key pastoral influences.

  *4 George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007), 156–57.

  The Supper of the Lamb: A Benediction

  When I was a boy, I found a pocketknife in the woods. It was rusted and dirty. With some difficulty I got the blade open, only to find it was blunt. A thoroughly useless knife. I brought it home and showed it to my grandfather. He started to work on it, soaking it in oil. He rubbed it on a stone; he ground it and polished it. And I watched with delight.

  When he was done, the rusty, blunt, dirty knife was shining, sharp, and useful.

  * * *

  Recently I found two words and a blessing. I found them tucked away in Revelation 19. As words go, they have lost their sharpness, their shine. They are blunt, hidden under an accumulation of debris in the last book of the Bible. I am going to try applying some of my grandfather’s restoration skills on these words. They are great words. Used with their original sharpness and accuracy, they will make your participation in the life of Christ deeper and better.

  The first word is hallelujah. Do you remember how many times that word occurs in the New Testament? That’s right—four times. And only in this passage from Revelation. That is surprising, isn’t it? The word is one of the most used religious words in our vocabulary. It has passed from the church into the secular world. There are Broadway plays that use the word, and pop songs. Sometimes it is heard without any church or religious associations, as a simple expression of delight. And all of that is based on these few verses at the back of the Bible (besides its use in the Psalms).

  Hallelujah is a Hebrew word meaning, literally, “praise God.”*1 But it has crossed the language barriers and ethnic boundaries and kept its own sound through it all: hallelujah. The word has lilt and exuberance to it. Its meaning is expressed in its sounds: hallelujah. There are happiness and delight in it. Praise is supported by the liquid, undulating sounds of the syllables.

  But it is not just a pleasant sound that is preserved in this great word. There is also a rooted experience. God is praised in the word. When we say hallelujah, we are participating in the basic experience of joy and gratitude, centering our lives in an open, glad response to God.

  We were not created for curse and gloom. We were not put together to live in despair and melancholy. We do not have the natural equipment for blasphemy and bitterness. Every language has its own special vocabulary for cursing, but the vocabulary for praise transcends them all. The curse is provincial. Praise is universal. Swearing is a small-town vice. Praising is a worldwide virtue. Rejection of life is temporary and fleeting and sick. Gratitude for it is deep and pervasive and healthy.

  If you want to swear, you have to learn a new word in every language: Hebrew, Greek, Sanskrit, Egyptian, French, Spanish, German, Icelandic, and Russian. If you want to say, “Praise God,” one word will do all over the world: hallelujah.

  Small evidence, perhaps, but significant that it is not the word but the experience that is universal and basic. It is also an adequate explanation for why the four occurrences of hallelujah in the Bible infected all the languages of the world with the contagious sound of praising God.

  It would be easy to discount the significance of the word if it were said in a burst of good feeling on a summer day by a person well fed and securely stationed. It would express her feelings accurately, but it would not say anything about life as a whole. What would she be able to say when she was ill or oppressed or suffering or exhausted? Would hallelujah still be in her vocabulary then? To know the significance of a word, you have to know who says it and the circumstances in which she says it.

  Hallelujah was injected into the vocabulary of the peoples of the world by persons who were threatened daily with torture and death. The songs of Revelation were sung by the Christians who lived under the sadism of the Roman police state. The church that sang the hallelujah songs in Revelation was almost exclusively made up of the poor and the exploited, the imprisoned and the martyred.

  That means there must be something basically authentic about that which the word expresses. Saying hallelujah does not depend, in other words, on a good digestion or a guaranteed annual income. It does not depend on health or security. The word is there because God is here and life is shaped by God for eternal goodness. Grace and love are the centers of existence. Hallelujah expresses gratitude toward that reality. You don’t have to wait until you feel good to say hallelujah. And you don’t have to wait until you are good to say it. You can say it now and begin to shape your language and your life around the truth of God in your personal history. Language, if it is going to be useful, has to reflect the reality of life. God is the reality of life. Hallelujah is a good word to describe our knowledge and response to that reality.

  You don’t have to wait until you feel good to say hallelujah. And you don’t have to wait until you are good to say it. You can say it now and begin to shape your language and your life around the truth of God.

  The second word is amen. It is also an untranslated Hebrew word. And it means “yes.”*2 Like hallelujah, it has infiltrated the vocabularies of the peoples of the world. None of you know what the word for “no” is in Hebrew, but you know what “yes” is. You have been saying it all your life, in church and out of it. Amen—yes—is God’s favorite word.

  Paul said this with wonderful directness when he was writing to the Corinthians:

  The Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes” and “No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 1:19–20, nrsv)

  The gospel, Paul was saying, is not half-negative and half-positive. It is yes. God does not deny your life; he affirms it. The work of Christ is not to qualify and inhibit and diminish your life; it is to accept and release and augment it. The word to you is yes—amen.

  That being the case, how did we develop so many negative words and feelings? I really don’t know. It would take a team of psychiatrists and sociologists to find out. But right now, I’m not terribly interested in the why. What is blazingly clear is that whenever there is repression or negativism or denial, it is not the gospel. It is not the church of Jesus Christ. It is not God’s word to us. It is some kind of faithless, small-minded, sinful intrusion into the sacred courts of God’s yes.

  What is blazingly clear is that whenever there is repression or negativism or denial, it is not the gospel
. It is not the church of Jesus Christ. It is not God’s word to us. It is some kind of faithless, small-minded, sinful intrusion into the sacred courts of God’s yes.

  No is a word that cannot be fit into the lyrics of worship while the yes is everywhere. I am not, of course, saying (and neither does Scripture) that everything that is, is good, or that anything goes, or that everyone should be encouraged to do whatever he wants to do. I am not saying there is no need for regulation or discipline or judgment. What I am saying is that the basic, overwhelming, eternally fixed word of God to you is yes. Yes, I love you. Yes, I accept you. Yes, I want you. And that our best word back to God is yes. Amen.

  We have recently had some confusion at our dinner table with the word amen. There has been some difference of opinion on whether to say “ah-men” or “ay-men.” My authority in the matter does not seem to have settled the question (a prophet without honor in his own country, you know), and so the differences have persisted. Our youngest, who normally says the table prayers, gets mixed up: ah-men, ay-men. The other day he said, “What does amen mean, anyway?” My wife explained that it is the Hebrew word that simply means “Yes, I affirm that too; I agree with that.” So when he prays and all the rest of us conclude by saying amen, we are saying, “Yes, that prayer you prayed is my prayer too. I am in favor of that.” So he said, “Well, why don’t we just say yes, then?” The logic is unassailable, so why not? So now we do. Now, in addition to the Hebrew amen, we conclude prayers around our table with the English yes.

  And now the blessing: “The angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God’ ” (Revelation 19:9). This blessing follows the hymns that feature hallelujah and amen. The kind of life that expresses gratitude to God and responds with a yes to God is finally gathered around God’s table. Being invited to that table is the best thing that can happen to you. It is God’s blessing.

  When you are invited to a supper table, you are invited to receive the gift of your host’s food and friendship. Nobody pays for a dinner to which she is invited. And ordinarily there is something more than just eating that goes on at the table: there is conversation, the sharing of lives, the establishment of a community.

  A marriage supper brings the additional mark of festivity and celebration. The dinner is not only an occasion for gaining strength from food, for sharing a meal and emotional lives in conversation; it is more importantly a celebration for a union, a marriage that has been established by love and commitment. At the marriage supper, love is celebrated in all its joy, and faithfulness is celebrated in all its firmness. Joy and affirmation are celebrated—hallelujah and amen are united in a festival.

  The marriage supper of the Lamb is all this, with the additional factor that it is God himself who is the meal. The lamb—an image for the One who was killed in order to provide for the redemption of all people, the helpless victim who became the victorious conqueror—this lamb, this Christ, this God is the meal. The marriage supper of the Lamb is what we anticipate as we join in worldwide communion. The hallelujah and the amen are combined in a celebration meal. Our deepest capacity for praise and our deepest impulse for affirmation are focused at this table, where God’s goodness and God’s yes are expressed in the sacrament. Two words and a blessing. An invitation to eat at God’s table. Polish up your hallelujah.

  Come to this hallelujah banquet of our Lord and be blessed.

  This is the end where we make our beginning.

  The end from which we start.

  Amen.

  Skip Notes

  *1 M. G. Easton, s.v. “Hallelujah,” Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1897), www.biblestudytools.com/​dictionary/​hallelujah.

  *2 “Why Do We Say ‘Amen’? What Does It Mean?,” Christianity.com, August 21, 2019, www.christianity.com/​wiki/​christian-life/​why-do-we-say-amen-what-does-it-mean.html.

  About the Final Exams

  Eugene H. Peterson hated any recipe for spiritual life, believing it was in our specific time, place, and context that the life of Christ would be slowly and graciously worked into maturity.

  With that in mind, this guide is for prayerful introspection rather than being a quick fix for easy growth. Our prayer is that it helps you apply the insights of this book to where you are today, engaging mind and spirit with hopeful honesty.

  Taking Notes

  When you see the pencil icon above, you may want to fill out your answers on a separate piece of paper or use the Notes functionality on your eReader.

  If you are using a touch-screen reader or app, simply hold your finger over the first word in the line and then select “Note” to create a note and begin typing your answer.

  If you are using a non-touch-screen reader, move your cursor up to the line where you want to enter an answer and then begin typing to create a new note.

  You can then reference your answers anytime you are reading the ebook as they will be stored as notes on your device.

  A Guide for Lent or Other Times of Renewal

  In spring the days lengthen. The air warms. We abandon the survival tactics of winter and look around to see what is going on. We stretch ourselves and feel the juices of love, of faith, of hope rise in our lives.

  Christians do not only survive; we grow. But what are the signs of growth? What happens in us as we work and worship, play and talk, shop and sleep, laugh and cry? We get up in the morning and go to bed each night, day after day, week after week. Spring comes around again. A thaw begins in the winter of our sins. We are conscious of being moved by the rhythm of leaf bud and birdsong.

  We freshly confess Christ as our savior. We affirm our faith in God. We take a look at ourselves. We ask hard questions: Is our declaration of faith perfunctory or life shaping? Are our prayers pious asides to the eternal, or are they deep inner currents of conversation with God that move us out of our ego orbit into the mainstream of growth and redemption?

  Christians have a long tradition of examining ourselves in these matters. Lent is the season for it—spring renewal brought inward. We measure ourselves against the health and holiness of Jesus Christ to find out how far we have come, how far we have to go. How much have we learned? How much have we grown? Are we any closer to maturity now than this time last year? Have we advanced in our commitment? Have we developed in our faith? Or are we stuck in some comfortable self-deception, some cozy self-indulgence?

  The purpose of inner examination is not to gloomily document our depravity but to provide clear-sighted self-knowledge for affirmation, for correction, and for motivation. What’s right with us? What’s wrong with us? What does God have in mind for us?

  We will all, finally, stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Our regular final exams (whether in Lent or anytime we need them) are preparation for that time.

  Examining Our Love

  “Love is not what we do after we get the other things done, if we have any energy left over. Love is what we do, period. It is not how we work; it is our work. Other things can support it, they can grow out of it, and they can lead up to it. But if we don’t love, we aren’t doing what we were created and saved to do” (this page).

  “Have you strayed from your first love of Christ and those early bursts of love for your neighbors?” (this page). What might it look like to return to it?

  Examining Our Suffering

  “I live in a culture and a society where hardly anyone knows the meaning of the word sacrifice, where suffering is something to be avoided at all costs and complained of when it can’t be avoided, and where it is unthinkable that there is anything more important than preserving and extending my life” (this page).

  “Are you willing to die for your faith? And are you willing to give up anything along the way in order to pursue it—those little deaths that sometimes seem as diffic
ult as the final one, dying to impulses of ambition, of lust, of pride, of security, of comfort?” (this page).

  Examining Our Truth

  “Sometimes it is easier to die for the truth in a crisis than to live the truth through a dull week at work. The truth test comes, though, not on the heights to which we rise under pressure but through those ordinary hours when we don’t know we are being examined at all” (this page).

  “The truth test asks not What do you think? but Who are you? Not What is your opinion? but What is your decision?” (this page). How well is your heart aligning with your mind?

  Examining Our Holiness

  “Being a fool for Christ means pursuing the reality of God even when the appearance isn’t congenial. Being made a fool of means chasing the appearance of religion when inward reality has nothing to do with God” (this page).

  “Does this teaching return you to the God revealed in Christ—his words, his acts—or does it excite you with what you’ll get, acquire, feel? Does this teaching return you to yourself—who you are, where you are—or does it incite ambition, discontent, a desire to be someone else, somewhere else?” (this page).

  Examining Our Reality