Our Daily Mirth

"The fellowship of the table has a festive quality. It is a constantly recurring reminder in the midst of our everyday work of God's resting after His work, of the Sabbath as the meaning and goal of the week and its toil. Our life is not only travail and labor, it is also refreshment and joy in the goodness of God. We labor, but God nourishes and sustains us. And this is reason for celebrating. Man should not eat the bread of sorrows (Ps 127:2); rather "eat they bread with joy" (Eccles. 9:7); "I commanded mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry" (8:15); but, of course, "who can eat, or who can have enjoyment apart from Him?" (2:25). It is said of the seventy elders of Israel who went up to Mount Sinai with Moses and Aaron that "they beheld God, and did eat and drink" (Exod. 24:11). God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together