TASTE AND SEE

I'd stirred up some brownies from a box mix and could not resist a childhood pleasure—of licking the spoon and spatula. Yum, yum. Into the oven a pan would go, later to bear “number” candles for my son's latest birthday. That's right, brownies instead of a cake. His little boys eagerly tasted them and declared they were good!

I think of that sensory pleasure when I read Psalm 34:8:

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

As children, when confronted by a new and strange food, we'd often be told, “Taste it, you'll like it.” That wasn't always true for limited and inexperienced palates! (Definitely NOT true of my first experience with liver!) But we often use the same ruse in introducing people to Christ. “Give Jesus a try—you'll like Him.” The problem is that Jesus isn't like the food samples offered by ladies in smocks and hairnets at the local big-box store. He's not in competition with another “product.” He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life—the only way to truly know God (John 14:6).

“Taste and see” is a warm invitation to know the living God—not a product evaluation. Once in a vital relationship with Jesus, we understand. And it gets better.

As a pre-teen introduced to the church sacraments, “communion” seemed such a mature mystery. At that time, my family attended a liturgical church where we came to the semi-circular altar rail, and the pastor served each of us: “This is the body and blood of Jesus.” I remember gripping the communion rail, trying to bridge the gap between something that tasted and Someone who sacrificed. As I grew and participated in communion services in other denominations, that mystery remained. And even though churches differ in how to explain this holy moment with long, important words, the bottom line seems to be this: we remember. The cross. Gratitude for being loved so much, for Him to endure so great a painful and sacrificial death.

Perhaps “taste and see” is the right way to phrase it. We can't experience Christ by looking in from the outside, no more than I could savor the chocolate left in the mixing bowl by leaving it untouched on the kitchen counter. Christ is not a display. He is a lifestyle, one defined and empowered by an undeserved, prophesied, willingly-entered-into and lovingly completed Death to conquer the Enemy's grip. His gasped words, “It is finished,” rocked across the millennia of history.

We taste...and know...that He is good. “Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8). We know through how choices play out in circumstances and relationships. And we know through that deep, inexplicable sense that Jesus is, indeed, the Presence within that truly satisfies.

In the church I now attend, communion is passed in trays down the rows, not served a few at a time at the altar rail. As I hold the little cup and wafer, I remember, and ask God to again make this a holy moment: “This is MY body, given for you, MY blood, shed for you.” I am to taste and know that He is good.

This way, that way?

A rural road about thirty miles away has more kinks that a snake with a tummy ache.  Directional signs abound to warn drivers of tight curves. One is such a hairpin that it merits two signs, pointing at each other.  The right one warns drivers coming up, the left ones, drivers going down. I always smile when I see the two seemingly contradictory arrows.

I wonder if the signs might symbolize something far more serious in spiritual terms. Jesus declared that He was the one-way-only sign:  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Problem is, people have switched some signs on life’s route.

Some say, “All religions lead to God.”  (Hmm, Jesus said He was the only way.)

Or, “If I’m good enough, without any of the really bad sins, God should let me into heaven.”  (Sorry, I’ve read Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”).

I’ve heard, “I’ve figured out my own type of religion.”  Hmmm.  “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).

 

The day I took this photo, road crews were out removing overhanging branches that could break and snarl traffic when the snows come.  Flaggers stood at appropriate distances to direct one-way traffic as just-cut debris was loaded onto trucks. I’m glad they were there! For some reason, I thought of another scriptural “go-this-way” passage—one that encouraged me to keep trusting God when life’s challenges left me confused and doubting.  Isaiah wrote it to his nation to remind the people of God’s compassion and desire that they follow only Him. The principles of God’s trustworthiness encouraged me, too:

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’ (Isaiah 30:21)

Through this, God reminded me that He is my “lead car” or flagger in life’s inevitable interruptions and detours. He is the Way, the only safe way.