In this post, I wrote about the fact that Jesus’ most important and powerful lesson (the cross) was a form of “act-speech.” That is, he teaches a deep theological truth, not through words, but through action.
I also noted that the two lessons that bookend this act-speech lesson are also forms of act-speech: sharing a meal with the disciples (the Last Supper and breakfast on the shore of Galilee after his resurrection). In the Last Supper in particular, I noted that Jesus, in teaching Who God Is, invites his disciples to share the Passover meal with him.
While they partake in this meal that functions to remind the Israelites of the redemptive event (the exodus) that defines them as a people, Jesus brings another layer of meaning into the ritual. Jesus teaches them that this is no ordinary bread and wine; this is extraordinary bread and wine not only because it’s the bread and wine of the old covenant, but now the new covenant as well.
Further still, he says, “This is my body. Take and eat.”
In this I pointed out that it is in the death of Jesus that humanity and the created order finds nourishment and life.
There’s another dimension that I wish to converge with this concept and that is the dimension of consuming the Word of God.
The image of individuals eating the scroll thereby finding nourishment and a guide into the future vocation of God’s people is not unknown in the Scriptures. We find this in Ezekiel.
And he said to me, “Son of man, eat whatever you find here. eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey (Ez 3:1–3)
Is it any coincidence that in this particular book we find the prophet both eating the scroll as well as prophesying the fact that God will create a new covenant with his people, and in that new covenant, the Torah will be written on the hearts of the people (internalized)? It’s not unusual, by the way, for the prophet to exemplify the people of Israel in his experience. In other words, what the prophet experiences as the individual is precisely what the people of God must experience in order for the prophet’s redemptive message to come to pass. This is true in the book of Isaiah in particular. Isaiah’s experience in chapter 6 is what all of Israel must experience to pass from judgment to hope.
So what does this have to do with Jesus and Passover? John 1:1 (and other places) teach us that Jesus is the Word. When Jesus, then, instructs his disciples to “take and eat, this is my body,” they are eating the Word of God. I find a powerful symbol here, especially in light of being so close to Pentecost.
Gordon Wenham explains the significance of this as he writes about the role of the memorization of the text (and the psalms in particular). He quotes Paul J. Griffiths who says,
As a reader memorizes a text, he becomes textualized; that is, he embodies the work he has committed to memory. “Ezekiel’s eating of the prophetic scroll . . . is a representation of the kind of incorporation and internalization involved in religious reading: the work is ingested, used for nourishment, incorporated: it becomes the basis for rumination and for action.”
By eating the Word, the people of God find nourishment, find life, and find vocation. They embody the vocation of Christ to be nourishment to a broken world at odds with its Creator. This is the missional aspect of the church that one must not overlook.
Taking on the character of Christ is not to become a sweet juicy apple for God’s showroom, but to be the food of a hungry world. The rivers of life that Jesus talks about that will well up internally in believers, it’s not only for you to drink from, but to become a source of life for a parched and decaying world around us.
Let the world take a bite out of the church, and they will taste and see that Jesus is good.
Ultimately, this symbol teaches that the redemption of the world will only come through the sacrifice of the church as the corporate body of Christ that is broken for the world.
Wenham, Gordon (2013-02-28), quoting Griffith’s Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) in The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms (Kindle Locations 247-250). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
