Metaphysical meaning of feast (mbd)
feast.
Meta. Appropriation in a large measure; that is, laying hold of divine potentialities. Several of the miracles of Jesus were in connection with a feast of some kind. Eating is the outer representation of an inward fact, that fact being spiritual. Jesus used the outer symbol to represent the spiritual reality when He told His disciples to eat the bread as His body, and drink the wine as His blood. When we affirm with spiritual understanding the fact of omnipresent substance we are eating the body of Christ, and when we affirm the omnipresent energy and eternal life of Spirit we are drinking the blood of Christ. When we enter into this understanding the outer symbols are not necessary--we have the substance in mind and spirit (John. 5:1).
The real "marriage feast" is that which results from the union of man with the Spirit of God. When this union takes place, man may eat of the heavenly manna and drink of the living waters.
A thirsting for the things of Spirit is necessary before one can really come to the spiritual marriage feast. Great desire for the light and purity and justice of Spirit is the power that draws man to God.
The Feast of the Tabernacles (Lev. 23:33-44) is a festival of ingathering, like our Thanksgiving Day. It was also a commemoration of the deliverance of the Children of Israel from the forty years in the wilderness and their entrance into the Promised Land.
All the feasts and festivities of the Jews had their foundation in divine science, although the people may not have understood their significance.
These Jewish feasts represent the harvest and gathering, by Spirit, of the surplus energies of the soul and the body. The Feast of the Tabernacles typifies the "passing over" of the nervous energy from one plane of consciousness to another and the inflow of substance from objective to subjective centers. When this inflow is complete it is called the last day of the feast. Then another step is necessary to complete the upward trend of man's being, and that is union with Spirit. This union is brought about through faith or belief in Spirit and in the higher life. When the soul thirsts after Truth it can be satisfied only by drinking in this higher life.
It is the Spiritual I AM in man that says to the full soul, "Come unto me and drink" (John 7: 37).
________________________
Preceding Entry: fear
Following Entry: feeding the five thousand
