Feast January 30, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Theology , trackbackThroughout human history religions, myths and ideologies have sought to make clear and compelling a metanarrative that explains what human life is all about. But for the past fifty or so years, and especially for the last half of that period, there has been a widespread failure of intellectual nerve, a willingness to throw up one’s hands and settle for the meaninglessness of it all, while still encouraging people to be kind and good and moral – as if there were any compelling reason or basis for morality other than personal taste, if in fact life is essentially meaningless.
The Christian faith still believes and proclaims the most enduring and life-changing message the world has ever heard, the great good news that God made us human beings in his own image for intimate and loving relationship with him and with one another, and that when we ran from him and from his love, forfeiting our right to be his children, our loving heavenly Father sent his Son to find us and lead us home.
This story of God’s redeeming love is told in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, in a form available to every one of us here today. Many of us have studied the Bible a little bit, and some have studied it a lot. Bible study is valued highly, and so it should be. But simply studying the Scripture is not enough; it is insufficient for introducing us to the deeper reality and power of the central character in the story, the One whom this story is all about.
Such an age as ours leaves the human soul hungry, longing for food that our culture cannot supply. We need soul food, but instead we stuff ourselves full of the pleasures and hopes and dreams and spiritualities on offer all around us, but always come away disappointed and aching even more deeply for the food that satisfies. Bible study helps, it is a necessary place to start; it points the way. But for too many of us, the Bible becomes the substitute for the One whom the Bible was written to reveal to us. The Bible does not save – God alone can save. But the Bible, rightly handled, introduces us to the God who saves, who feeds us with himself and who alone can satisfy the hunger of our souls. In the Scripture, David invited those of his age to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). Look with me at how we are to “taste and see,” to tend and feed our souls.
Three times in the Bible, the Word of God is represented in the form of a scroll that is given to a prophet with the command that he “eat the scroll.” The point is that the Word of God means to get inside us and transform us as surely as the food we eat fills, nourishes and transforms our bodies. The Bible is not an end in itself, nor does it work transformingly in those who use it as a theological lexicon, or as a book of rules, or as a magic book filled with magic words which can be memorized and used to get what we want from God. It has one great purpose: to tell us the true story of the origin and destiny of human history, of history’s central figure – Jesus Christ – and of how we may know him and become part of his story of rescuing humanity and all creation.
We only enter the story when we stop reading merely to be informed, and read instead to be formed and shaped – as we digest. Because the book was written under the Spirit’s guidance, it must be read under the Spirit’s guidance. This is the aim of lectio divina (spiritual reading): to read, meditate, pray, and contemplate the Scripture into life.
The aim of lectio divina is that we encounter the living Word of God, Jesus Christ, and enter his story. Jesus put this as arrestingly as possible, using language that offended the sensibilities of the religious people of his age. Just as the Bible itself is a scroll to be eaten, so too Jesus said that it is only those who feast on him who have eternal life. In other words, we do not read the Bible merely to have right beliefs about Jesus. We come to encounter him and be transformed by the encounter. He wants to enter us, to become one with us (remember his “high priestly prayer” in John 17:22f). He wants to fill us with his Spirit and make us like him. This is the aim of it all: union with Christ. In this is our salvation, our joy and our eternal destiny.
What God has prepared for us is something far more glorious, far more astonishing and wonderful than our bloodless theologies and spiritualities ordinarily comprehend. God’s messenger still stands with arm outstretched, offering God’s Word with the command, “Eat this book.” Jesus Christ still offers himself and says, “Feast on me.” Here at last is our life, our health, and our salvation.
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