Eat This, not That

 Jesu Juva

Jeremiah 1:4-10                                                               

 January 30, 2022

Epiphany 4C                                       

Dear saints of our Savior~

          You’ve got to taste this.  When was that last time you heard those words?  You’ve got to taste this.  Perhaps a fantastic bottle of wine has just been uncorked.  Or maybe your favorite chef at your favorite restaurant has just given your taste buds a thrill.  Or perhaps you’ve attended one of our Lenten suppers here at Our Savior, expecting the usual Jell-o salad and ham, only to bite into some tasty dish that really knocked your socks off.  You’ve got to taste this.  I hear it every Lent.

          But these fine dining experiences pale in comparison to Jeremiah’s meal in today’s Old Testament reading.  This passage describes the day when the Lord called Jeremiah to become a prophet.  The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.  The Lord declared that He formed Jeremiah in the womb, that He knew Jeremiah and set him apart even before he was born.  God called Jeremiah to speak His Word fearlessly to both the faithful and the faithless. 

          But Jeremiah, like every other man called by the Lord, was reluctant and unsure.  Some scholars believe that Jeremiah may only have been twelve or

thirteen years old when the Lord called him.  And so, to clinch the deal—to deal with Jeremiah’s doubt—the Lord says in effect, “Jeremiah, you’ve got to taste this.”  “Then the Lord put out His hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.’”  Jeremiah would later reflect on that day when the Lord called him.  And when Jeremiah remembered his call from the Lord, he said:  When your words came, I ate them; they were the joy and delight of my heart” (Jer. 15:16).  Jeremiah dined that day on the Words of the Lord.

          The call of Jeremiah is all about the Word of God.  And while we normally think of hearing God’s Words through our ears, the Scriptures sometimes describe the Word as edible—something received by way of the mouth.  Or perhaps you recall the words of that old prayer which begins this way:  “Blessed Lord, who hast caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them . . .”  God wants us to inwardly digest His Word.  For with that Word in us, we’re ready to face a world of opposition and temptation.

          That’s certainly how it was for Jeremiah.  The Words that the Lord put into his mouth sustained and strengthened him.  Jeremiah needed that strength.  He, perhaps more than any other prophet, was the proverbial bearer of bad news.  He was the messenger that everyone wanted to shoot.  His main message to his countrymen was that the armies of Babylon would soon overrun Judah and Jerusalem and destroy everything, including the temple.  Meanwhile, legions of false prophets were preaching about how to “make Jerusalem great again,” and how to “build back better.”  Jeremiah’s doom and gloom wasn’t very popular.  I could probably achieve that same level of popularity by preaching that Chinese troops will soon be storming the beaches of California.

          With the Words of the Lord in his mouth, Jeremiah was ready for everything life would serve up.  During Jeremiah’s ministry, God’s people would lose everything:  temple and sacrifice, their monarchy, their cities, their land, their homes.  Everything would be stripped away.  But through it all, they would still have the Word.  They would still have the promises of God—promises for hope and a future—promises for prosperity and not harm—promises of the Messiah who would one day come.  That Word, inwardly digested, strengthened the faithful through times of terror and exile, siege and sorrow. 

          That’s how it is for you and me, too.  Our God places His Word in our mouths so that we can taste what Jeremiah tasted—so that we can taste and see that the Lord is good, even when our lives are filled with losses and sin and fear.  You’ve got God’s Word to chew on.  You’ve got His promises when you hunger and thirst for righteousness.  You can graze on His goodness, marinated in His mercy.  He always provides a feast for the least.

          It all sounds so easy, doesn’t it?  Feast on God’s Word and you will have what you need!  But God’s Word isn’t the only thing being cooked up and spooned out to you.  You do have other dining options available.  Some of you who have done a lot of dieting can perhaps identify with this.  You know what’s good for you.  You know what you should eat and you plan accordingly—down to the last carb and calorie. You know what to eat; and you know what to avoid eating.  Sounds easy. 

          So you make plans—plans to eat this, and not that.  For breakfast you’ll have blueberries with whole grain oats, sprinkled with hemp, chia seeds, and flax. Plus 3 Brazil nuts.  And a half cup of black coffee.  For lunch you’ll have four ounces of lean broiled chicken breast on a bed of baby kale, and one fat-free, gluten-free Oreo cookie.  Then for an afternoon snack, the rest of the package of Oreo cookies, washed down with a quart of chocolate ice cream. Then for dinner two loaves of garlic bread (heavy on the butter), large pizza (extra cheese), milkshake and cheesecake for dessert, washed down with a bottle of wine.

          Sound familiar?  We know what we should eat.  You know you should eat this and not that.  In the same way, you know that God’s Word is good for you, and you try to stay on a spiritual diet of God’s pure organic Word.  You know you’ll be better off if you do, for that Word always brings health and healing and strength and life.  But then we slip:  one Oreo cookie, one crumb of coveting, one piece of pornography, a few thin slices of slander, a sip of sarcasm aimed at your spouse, followed by some boiled rage and a dash of revenge and a few ounces of immorality, and then the rest of the box of Oreos!  You intend to ingest only the best.  But instead, you’ve made yourself spiritually sick—stuffed yourself with what is sinfully delicious.

          Worst of all, you have an enemy who thrusts this junk food in your face, on silver platters, and with a sly grin watches it all disappear.  Stuffed with Satan’s miserable morsels, our hunger for the Word of God is gone.  Our desire to inwardly digest God’s Word becomes a chore and a bore because we’re bloated and burping with the kind of devil’s food that leads to death.

          But the Lord who called Jeremiah also had one more Word for you—one more Word to serve His people—a Word more vindicating and victorious than any word ever spoken by Moses and the Prophets.  Coming down through the galaxies, descending into our solar system, past stars and sun and moon, this Word . . . became flesh and appeared on a dark Judean night, in the soft cry of a baby boy.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  And this baby boy—the Son of God, our Savior—He had a simple menu awaiting Him.  There was but one entrée on the menu of the Messiah.  The author of Hebrews tells us:  God sent His Son “so that . . . He might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9).

          A menu of misery was waiting for Jesus.  Think of the awful flavors that assaulted the Savior’s taste buds on Good Friday:  the spit of the soldiers, the sour wine that tasted of vinegar, the sweat that ran down His cheeks, the taste of His own blood.  But there was even something more that Jesus consumed that day.  He also drank the cup of the Father’s wrath to the very last drop.  Jesus consumed the wrath of God that was rightfully aimed at you—wrath that you deserve for every piece of forbidden fruit you have ever tasted.  But all of your sin, and all of its punishment—it was all laid upon Jesus—on Jesus, and no longer on you.

          I’m so glad to remind you that Jesus not only tasted death, but He swallowed death completely.  That’s why it says in 1 Corinthians 15 that death has been swallowed up in victory.  Death with its insatiable appetite has been beaten and eaten by Jesus the Christ.  That means that you are going to live forever!  That means that your name is on the guest list for the feast of feasts in heaven, where calories and carbs are no cause for concern. 

          This Jesus, who tasted death for you, is here today to feed you with His holy Words and with His precious body and blood.  Today He brings you a foretaste of the feast to come.  “Take and eat,” He says, “for the forgiveness of sins.”  Nourished by that forgiveness, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  He gives you His Holy Spirit so that you can stick to the only diet that really matters—the only diet that will equip you to live forever—the only diet that fills your life with faith and hope and love.  And—get ready because—when He puts His words in your mouth, well, you can’t help but say, “You’ve just got to taste this!”

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.