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在我任教的学校，我们毕业班的同学会用很多课余时间来计划他们的毕业宴会。他们预先去品尝菜单上的菜品、筹款来安排一个特别的庆典、和想像一下庆祝他们期待已久的学业里程碑，将会是何等美好的一次聚会。

圣经中神的救赎计划，也是以一场盛大筵席作为高潮的。整卷圣经中很多故事，都描述神怎样喂养祂的子民。神亲自在祂子民中作为以及透过他们成就的奇妙故事，就像长长的面包穿插在其中，并且在烘成出炉那样。这场盛宴将会有最精美和最高级的面包——这是筵席不可缺少的。这场盛宴同时具备很多东西：它充满基督长阔高深的爱；它颂扬旷野中的吗哪和神的“陈设饼”；它以几何级数倍增饱足的五千人；它使人想起耶稣与祂的门徒一起祝谢和擘开的饼；它更作为耶稣自己——生命的粮——来喂养我们。

这一切美好的回忆和每一个已实现的应许，都在新天新地里羔羊的盛大筵席中融合了。

In the school where I teach, our senior students spend a lot of their spare time planning their graduation banquet. They taste samples from a banquet menu, raise funds so that they can have a special celebration, and imagine how great it will be to celebrate their long-awaited milestone.

A great feast is also at the culmination of God's great story of redemption in the Bible. Throughout Scripture, many stories show how God feeds his people. It's like a long bread-thread woven through and baked into the whole story of God's amazing work in and through his people. And this great feast will have the finest and best of breads—no meal could be complete without it. This great feast combines so many things at once: it is high and long and wide and deep with the love of Christ; it celebrates manna in the wilderness and the "bread of the Presence" of God; it multiplies the feeding of the 5,000 exponentially; it recalls the bread that Jesus gave thanks for and broke with his disciples; and it fills us with Jesus himself, the bread of life.

All of these great memories and the fullness of every promise come together at the great supper of the Lamb in the new heaven and earth.