That’s a term that was used in the Navy when it was time to eat. I’ve been using it ever since. It sounds different, more to the point than: let’s have dinner. That’s too civilized; the heart of the issue gets lost in the effort to be polite…maybe. I’m thinking about this because of something Jesus said. He asked a simple question: “Have you anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:40) Not too unusual except for the fact that He was appearing to the eleven remaining disciples for the first time after being raised from the dead! A shocker to be sure; the Lord had been telling them in various ways that this would happen, but the reality of it was overwhelming. They thought it couldn’t be true, thought they were seeing an apparition. So Jesus asked the simple question: “Do you have anything to eat?” I’ve read the Gospels many times over the years, but it just seemed strange to read Luke’s account this time. We’re talking about what is probably the most amazing thing to happen since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Everybody witnessed His death on the cross—a horrendous way to die that was about as brutal as dying can get, and yet here He was standing before them, showing them the wounds that He suffered. Then, as if to punctuate the reality of His appearance, He asks a simple question: “Have anything here to eat?” It was just unexpected when I read it this time; why would He do that? Letting His disciples see—and touch—His wounds seems appropriate, but asking for a snack???

The more I thought about it, the more significant it seemed to be. The sacrificial system, that was ordained in the Old Testament, included times when those making the sacrifice ate part of what was sacrificed. The death of Jesus has been recognized as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, and the Lord’s Supper symbolizes that sacrifice for those who believe. However, those presentations express features of a ritual, an important ritual, but a ritual nonetheless. In Luke’s account, Jesus seems to act in a casual manner. He appears before the disciples and to counteract their astonishment He asks for something to eat. Something profound in the extreme is brought into focus when He eats some chow! Nothing special about the food, it’s just an action that emphasizes the reality of His presence. I’m really here, it’s not a vision; it’s not an apparition; it’s a reality! Believe it…it’s true! And that’s the reason that I’m focusing on this “event.” The significance of it is in the mundane aspects of it. It’s not about a procedure or a habit—read ritual—that emphasizes a truth. It’s about a connection that we have with the One and Only.

The tendency that we have is to compartmentalize our lives. Family, work, recreation…and Church, are all major parts of the lives of a believer; and we share them in common with other believers. But when it comes to the reality of the Lord in the moment…in the here and now, the connection can be blurred. What is the reality of God in the moment? How real is He…really? We pray to the One who is over and above us all. We read about Him from His Scripture. We share our understanding of the Lord with others, whether they’re believers or not. But how real is He in the moment, wherever we happen to be? The Bible seems to point to this in various ways. We’re encouraged to “pray without ceasing,” to “walk by the Spirit;” not once in a while, or when we run into trouble, but all the time. (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Galatians 5:25) To me this indicates that our inner life with God should inform our outer life with everything else. It’s good for us! Instead of walking about on our own and occasionally looking to the Lord for help, we’re prompted to establish and maintain an ongoing association with the Lord.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your heart to God. (Colossians 3:15-16)

These verses should be a familiar encouragement for us, but I don’t think we’re being prompted to take that posture only during specific times set aside for prayer. The text promotes an ongoing posture in which we maintain our communion with the Lord continuously. The resistance to that posture may be twofold. First, there’s us. We don’t naturally want to allow the Lord to inform everything about us…do we? I don’t if I’m being truthful. I want to save portions of myself for myself. It may be sinful, or it may not be, but it’s mine. Ego, pride…maybe fear; they all work to hold the influence of the Lord at bay. But He wants it all…and He should get it! And in return we get something far better than what we could gain on our own: our true selves, not the marred facsimile of our own making, but our true selves, informed by the Light. This is reality; it’s not just a spiritual add-on, it’s us made whole. It’s a reconciliation of our substance and our soul with the One true God. Jesus is real; He can prove it…just give Him some chow and He’ll show you.

However, resistance to this is not only found within our own misguided self, it also comes from another quarter; we have an enemy, a conscious reality that works to distort the true nature of humanity; an adversary who, for whatever reason, seeks to undermine the truth of our existence and our redemption. Working through minds that are consumed by their own sovereignty, our adversary the devil has established an understanding of reality that reduces our origins to unconscious substance. According to this delusion we’re the product of naturally occurring phenomena that somehow gained self-awareness. Notions of a spiritual reality are left for crackpots enamored with witchcraft, or fools fixated on ritual or an ill-defined understanding of what “spirit” actually means. And this affects us whether we realize it or not. It’s one thing to affirm the reality of God and the spiritual dynamic that’s displayed in the Bible; it’s another thing to actually believe that and walk in that understanding in everyday life. The tendency is to separate the spiritual from the substantial. That’s why the gesture that Jesus performed is so significant. The Lord had risen from the dead—a supernatural event—but His substance was intact. And He proved it by eating some of the food that the disciples gave Him! What that suggests to me is that the spiritual and the substantial needs to intersect in our lives as well! The substance of our lives day to day needs to intersect with the spiritual reality that we affirm.

How does that happen? The short answer is we need to walk in the Light! Trying to get a handle on this reminds me of something Jesus said about Himself: “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12) Trying to understand this and absorb its meaning I’m reminded of how natural light reveals things in the natural environment; it exposes reality, presenting that reality in various ways. I live in south Florida and there’s a lot of foliage that is tossed around in the breezes of these surroundings. As I watch the plant-life moving about it’s amazing how the appearance of the foliage changes. One moment a large leaf is exposed by the light, only to disappear into a shadow in the next moment. The presentation is constantly changing. In some ways it’s like that in the spiritual environment in which we exist. Our God is Light but the destabilized environment in which we live is always being tossed around by the powers of darkness and our imperfect capacities to comprehend our surroundings.

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. (James 1:17)

We’re being called to walk in the Light, to see things as they actually are, not the way they’re often presented. Jesus Christ is not a phenomenon or an apparition, He’s a reality, a substantial reality within an environment of ever-changing apparitions.

But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.” Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:13-15)

What I’m seeking to do here is affirm a real connection between what is substantial with what is spiritual in our walk. When Jesus appeared to His disciples they thought they were seeing things, and they were! But what they were seeing was not just a presentation of a spiritual reality; they were seeing an embodied Jesus, embodied as we are. The connection between body and spirit was made evident to the disciples, and, in a similar fashion we need to establish and maintain the connection between what we affirm by faith with what we affirm concerning our physical surroundings. Our walk isn’t just pie in the sky it’s substantial spirituality. That’s a little scary because it’s real in a way that alters our understanding of ourselves. The disciples were initially disturbed when they saw the risen Lord among them, but His substance wasn’t an apparition and the reality of His presence became an informing reality. It altered the disciples understanding of who Jesus was and who they were in relation to the Lord. This became even more apparent when they were baptized with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. (Acts 2:1-13) In pointing this out I’m not arguing for the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues. Something more significant than signs and wonders is in view here. Speaking in tongues or expressing a gift of prophecy has its benefits, but not everyone exercises those gifts. However, we all need to embrace the substantial nature of our Lord’s presence in our lives! He’s real and He’s here for those who are willing to accept it. Think about it! Pray about it?

Halleluiah!

Go with God!