LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.
Jesus speaks to you today, saying:
In the verse after this one, the Jews misquote Jesus and ask
Him how He can say “he will never taste death”. So what are the Jews trying to
say by saying “never taste death” and what is Jesus trying to say by “never see
death”?
To start off, the word for “taste” is only used twice by St. John : here and at the wedding of Cana .
There, the master of the feast tastes the water turned wine and it blows his
mind. Here, like today’s Gospel, the word is used in connection with one of
Jesus’ signs. Signs that point to His suffering, death, and His subsequent
actions He will do in His Church, like communing with us by wine and tasting.
However, this still doesn’t say why the Jews used this word
instead of the word Jesus used. There may be one part of the Old Testament that
will help us out. In 1 Samuel 14, King Saul is fighting the Philistines, but he
has already disobeyed and the Lord said his kingdom will not endure.
His son, Jonathan, like David to come, has become a greater
hero than his father. Where Saul wants to do things his way, Jonathan takes the
initiative in fighting and the Lord is givng him victories. He comes to hold
great favor with the army and all the people. Even greater than King Saul.
In one long, drawn out battle, Saul proclaims a curse on
anyone who eats until the army is victorious. The battle comes to a standstill
because of hunger, yet a forest that has been captured is full of honey, ready
to replenish low morale and low energy. Yet none ate, because of the ridiculous
oath from Saul.
Jonathon does not hear the oath his father swore and eats
the honey. He is reenergized for the fight and wonders why no one else is
copying him. As the battle commenced, the Israelites begin to eat raw meat with
the blood because of their hunger, yet this is a great sin against God. As Saul
investigates how this happened, the Lord reveals that Jonathan is the guilty
party who ate. As Saul demands his own son’s death, the people speak up and
save his life.
Here we have two main thoughts. The first is that Saul put
an unnecessary burden of law upon the people, which was not commanded by God,
causing them to sin even more, which is how the Law works. Jonathan, fearing
God rather than men, sins against his father, but does what is right none the
less. By eating, though, he has taken the curse within himself and will reap
the consequences.
In this way, eating brings the man into communion with death
which then convinces him that death is a part of God’s creation. And if death
is a part of God’s creation, then it is just a part of life, thus Abraham can
die, the prophets can die, and the Jews can throw this in the face of Jesus Who
is promising eternal life in today’s Gospel.
Repent. Scripture says “taste and see” that the Lord is
good, yet Adam and Eve saw the fruit and tasted. In complete doubt and
rebellion, sin and death entered the world. Tasting and seeing go hand in hand,
but we can not taste death and remain in the faith. Death must be done away
with.
Jesus tells us that “…we see Him who for a little while was
made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because
of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for
everyone.” (Heb. 2:9)
Not only will there be no tasting of death by Abraham, the
prophets, or any of the believers, but it will be God Himself Who will swallow
up death forever.
Thus, when we switch to the word Jesus uses in “shall never
see death”, we hear only Gospel and therefore only life.
“For this is the will
of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should
have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40)
God does not let death have the only say on earth nor the
only face time. He comes down Himself to be the icon of Life, for when we look
upon Jesus on the cross we don’t see death, but life, our life. So we keep
Jesus on our crosses and on our Altars.
For we are not only to see the Son, but also to believe Him.
And to believe Him means to hear Him and to hear Him means to taste Him and
find forgiveness. This is not an intellectual sampling of whatever is on the
religious buffet. This is a tasting, a gnawing and gnashing, and an ingesting
of the Lord.
As we went over last week, tasting is part and parcel of the
Lord’s plan in His Divine Service. It is in the meeting of the earthly and the
heavenly that death is pushed out, sin is cast off, and the evil spirit is
shoved aside to make room for the Holy Spirit. In the Lord’s Supper, there is
only life, light, and forgiveness.
Though we still approach the Altar with the sin of Jonathan,
instead of the curse condemning us as King Saul, King of kings Jesus acquits us
through His tasting of the condemnation and His complete consumption of it on
the cross. Jesus eats evil and spews out Good from His pierced side. Jesus
ingests death, rises again with immortal flesh and blood, and sets this same
flesh and blood before you to taste and see that the Lord is Good.
In unbelief, we believe that death is from God and that we
must face this hell on our own to prove our worth, as the Jews believed. The
gift of faith reveals to us that death is not a part of life. Death is not from
God and is not found in God or at His Table. Thus, the Christian, baptized into
Christ, will never see death nor taste it, because the Christian looks only for
Jesus, only sees Jesus, and only tastes Jesus in the Sacrament.
The Good that the Christian discovers there, by faith, is
that the sinner is reconciled to the great I AM Who was before Abraham. The
Christian finds that in eating and drinking, there is a meal that was planned
to be here since before the foundation of the world (Mt. 25:34)
For “…he chose us in
him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before him” (Eph. 1:4). That we might see Him and in seeing Him also see
the One Who sent Him (Jn. 12:45). That this seeing be done not just with the
mind’s eye, but with the ear’s eye and the hand’s eye and the tongue’s eye,
because this One “…was made manifest in
the last times for the sake of you” (1 Pet. 1:20).
Death is not tasted in this place. Though we may hunger
later, we are being filled to the brim with eternal life as God Promises. So
that, even though we may die, we will live.
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