Can’t You See What’s On The Table?

11 October 2026  Isaiah 25:6-10, Matthew 22:1-14

“On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever….”   (Isaiah 25:7-8)

There are at least eight texts in the Bible that describe heaven as a spectacular banquet, “a feast of rich food and pure, choice wines” (Isaiah 25:6), the kind of feast that no one would ever want to miss.

But Jesus says some do miss it. They decide to go to work instead, and for good measure beat up those who bring the invitation (cf. Matthew 22:1-6).

Why would anyone do that?

It’s because they don’t understand what’s on the table.

At the end of the day, people wind up being bored by the most that the world can do. In our time, people carry around powerful devices that give them access to more information than any people in the history of the world have ever been able to imagine, and they can have it all in seconds.

Jesus says that people like this will be cast into the outer darkness “where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” (cf. Matthew 22:13), but the fact is that they’re already there, already crying and gnashing their teeth, and they are headed for more. But nobody is doing that to them – they are choosing that because they can’t see what’s on the table. Won’t see it. Choose not to see it.

Students can get the answers to the most complicated calculus problems, and get a whole essay on any topic with just a few keystrokes, so cleverly composed that no teacher would be able to tell that the students hadn’t written it. And yet the students are bored – having all that at their fingertips, it turns out, is not what they want. In fact, they don’t know what they want, and so having all that information at their fingertips is making them anxious and depressed.

They turn down invitations to the feast to watch Tik Tok. Hours at a time. They don’t know what’s on the table. They don’t call it “doomscrolling” for nothing.

What’s on the table is the life of God, and because it is the life of God, it is the best of everything, and it is eternal. It can never die, and those who have it can never die either: “He will destroy death forever…” (Isaiah 25:8). They really want that more than anything, but they can’t see it, so they miss the feast for Tik Tok.

Jesus says that people like this will be cast into the outer darkness “where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” (cf. Matthew 22:13), but the fact is that they’re already there, already crying and gnashing their teeth, and they are headed for more. But nobody is doing that to them – they are choosing that because they can’t see what’s on the table. Won’t see it. Choose not to see it.

Everything the world has to offer ends in death. The world doesn’t have anything else. All people, if they are really paying attention, have a very specific craving for something else, something that cannot die, something that lives, even in the midst of terrible pain and suffering, and something that will endure even when all the pain and suffering is ended – and pain and suffering will end, because everything in this world ends. If we are paying attention, we know that we have a very specific craving for eternity. It is why we spend billions, trillions of hours and dollars to try to cure diseases.

It is also why Jesus came.

God built that craving into us, and He is the one, the only One, who can satisfy it. That’s what’s on the table. His table. The Lord’s Table.

You’re invited. RSVP.