– Image of the joy and newness that the Messiah would bring to the Hebrew people:
Is 25:6 : The Lord of hosts prepared for all the peoples, in this mountain, a feast of fat meats.
– Its main characteristic would be the universality of the call to that great feast:
Is 2:2: At the end of time […] the mountain of the Lord’s house […] will dominate the hills. That’s where all the people will go.
Is 56,6-7 : For my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
Zech 8,20-23 : Many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to implore the face of the Lord.
Zech 14:16 : The nations that attacked Jerusalem will come […] to worship the king […] and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
– In the NT, the same idea of the great messianic feast remains, limited, however, only to the Jews. Jesus fought against it:
Mt 8,5-13 : Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter my house. Just say the word and my servant will be healed.
Mt 15,21-28 : And behold, a Canaanite woman […] cried out: “Lord, son of David, have mercy on me!”.
Mt 22,2-10 : The Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a king celebrating his son’s wedding.
Mt 23:37 : Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!
Lk 14,15-24 : One of the guests said to Jesus: “Blessed is he who sits at table in the Kingdom of God!”.
– Peter was reluctant to accept the universality of the Kingdom:
Acts 10:9-48 : “What God has made clean, do not call unclean.” This was repeated three times.
Acts 11:1-18 : The apostles and brothers in Judea heard that even the Gentiles had received the Word of God.
– Paul also understood this with difficulty, after persecuting Christians:
Acts 9:1-9, 10-19 : They took him by the hand and brought him into Damascus, where he stayed three days without seeing or eating.
Acts 15:13-17 : Simon narrated that God began to look to the pagan nations to take from them a people who would bear his name.
