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.

Sweet treats

Spring’s first strawberries to hit stores are hard to resist—big, plump, appealing to winter-starved tasted buds. But usually something is missing: true flavor. Those early Goliaths, probably forced in greenhouses, simply taste flat. So this year, when my husband brought home some clearance strawberry plants, I was eager to plant them for real taste.  My usual planting spot now ant-ridden, I decided to put these in pots in another part of the yard.  When the first ones reddened, ah…there is nothing like a tiny, vine-ripened strawberry.

The deliciousness of true fruit is aptly used in the Bible’s analogy of the “fruit of the spirit.”  Probably best known is Paul’s Galatians 5:22-23 list of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

But I wonder if it’s easy to get stuck in familiar lists. Wherever the Bible talks about good character, those all are “fruits” of a life connected to God. Proverbs, for example, is plum (pun intended) full of observations of good (and bad) character. But one list I’ve been drawn to lately is in Peter’s second letter, where he talks about progressive holy character.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.(2 Peter 1:5-8)

Consider how Eugene Peterson paraphrased the same passage in The Message:

So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, completing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others.

Time—and the nourishment of soil, water, and sun—produce the sweetest strawberries, So, too, our faith. We need time on the divine “Vine”—staying connected to Jesus—to offer a sweet “taste” of Him to the world.

Some people read Psalm 34:8 (“O taste and see that the LORD is good” ) and think of workers in food warehouse stores, white mesh nets over their hair, standing at promotion carts with little taste-cups of featured food. One way non-Christians get “tastes” of God is through the lives of believers who are manifesting godly traits like “reverent wonder” and “generous love.” All the more reason to “ripen” with godly character, such as those character qualities in lists like the apostle Peter’s.

In the meantime, anybody for a bowl of cereal with a just-picked ruby prize?  There might be enough for two in my backyard pots.