In Atlanta resides the World of Coke. As you’d imagine, it’s essentially a propaganda museum for all things Coke. Still, there are worse ways to avoid the suffocating heat of an Atlanta summer than learning about the history of one of America’s iconic brands. Especially because near the exit they have a room where you can taste-test dozens of the different products Coke sells around the world. Some are wonderful. Some…not so much. One drink for your taste-testing pleasure is called “Beverly,” and is reportedly sold in Italy. During your time at there, you hear this beverage mentioned specifically more than once. So of course, you’re intrigued. You take your little plastic cup, press the dispenser, and get ready to sip. And then…. Well, according to one reviewer with a particular gift for description, “it's as if you'd crushed a thousand Imodium AD caplets, made them into a paste, and painted your tongue with it. The bitterness seeps into parts of your throat where taste buds should not exist, but somehow do. The museum staff falls all over themselves laughing at you, and then they get a mop.” Yet as awful as that drink is, and I can assure you, it is truly awful…I’m still grateful that I wasn’t party to the taste test conducted by one gourmet cook.
It happened at an elegant reception near Denver. The hostess had just graduated from a gourmet cooking course and decided it was time to put her skills to the ultimate test. She prepared plenty of fancy-looking hors d’oeurves for her guests. Delicate little crackers served with wedges of imported cheese, bacon chips, olives, and pimento. And to top them off, a small dollop of dog food . Yep. She was serving up hors d’oeurves a la Alpo. After doctoring up those foul, miserable morsels, she put them on a couple of silver trays and sent them out to make the rounds. With a sly grin she watched them all disappear into the hands and into the mouths of her unsuspecting party guests. She noticed that one man in particular just couldn’t get enough. When the truth was finally revealed, the hostess was probably lucky to escape without him barking and biting her on the leg as punishment for her deception! More likely though, was that he and the other guests found themselves famished and longing for real food. Food that is sweet and good.
Amos also knows about people hungering for real food and finding none. Back in chapter 4, he had preached the coming of famine and drought in the land. A time when the natural world would be under destruction, and the people would struggle to find food. But now in chapter 8, Amos again speaks of a coming famine. But this time it will not be a famine of the land. It will not be a drought in terms of lacking rain or good soil. Instead, it is going to be a famine of the Word of God. The Word of God which they have rejected time and time again is going to be removed from them entirely. This was their punishment for filling the temple with idols. For turning away from God and toward the gods of the nations around them. For ignoring God’s commands to provide for the poor and widowed, and instead oppressing and mocking them. For treating God’s holy days and holy places as excuses to get drunk and stuff themselves on the fattened calves.
As punishment for their sinful and unrepentant ways, for their steady diet of foreign gods and their own pride, God’s Word would be taken away from them. And as their plight gets worse…as they suffer more and more at the hands of their enemies…as they reach their moment of deepest need, they will finally seek out the Almighty God and find that he has no word for them. Amos says that they shall wander from sea to see, running to and fro in a frantic and desperate search...but they will find nothing. For their sin, they will face hunger and thirst for the refreshing and nourishing Word of God, but will find no satisfaction.
Why do you and I experience a famine of God’s word? Why are there times when God seems to be distant and silent? Just like Amos’ audience, it is because of our diet. For breakfast, half a grapefruit, whole wheat toast with no butter, skim milk, coffee black. For lunch, four ounces of lean broiled skinless chicken breast, steamed broccoli, green tea, and one Oreo cookie. For a mid-afternoon snack…the rest of the package of Oreo cookies, washed down with a large mint-chocolate chip milkshake. For dinner, an order of cheesy bread, a large sausage, pepperoni, and extra cheese pizza, a bottomless glass of soda, and for desert, double-chocolate fudge cheesecake!
Oh, we try, don’t we? We try to stay on a spiritual diet of God’s word that brings vigor and health and strength and power. We try to stick to those things that are good for us. That help build us up in our faith. Morning prayer and devotion. Daily time set-aside to spend in Scripture. But then we slip. One Oreo cookie. One crumb of coveting. One piece of pornography. One juicy piece of gossip. One choice profanity…and then the rest of the package of Oreos. We just can’t get enough. And it’s killing us!
The enemy thrusts this junk food before us on silver trays and with a sly grin watches it all disappear. Filled to the brim with his miserable morsels our desire to regularly study God’s word becomes a chore. The plans to start every morning in private devotion quickly go by the wayside. The encouragement to memorize, learn, and defend God’s Word becomes a burden. Our eagerness to trust, believe, love, and live out His Word becomes a bore. Our passion for daily prayer fades to the point that we can barely mutter a quick word of thanks before eating a meal at home. We increasingly lose interest in the things connected to our faith until the point that it can risk being neglected entirely. Just like the lima beans your mom spooned onto your plate when you were a kid.
And the result is a famine in the hearing of God’s Word.
So God decided to serve up one more Word. One more nourishing word of hope and comfort for all people. He would offer to the world THE Word. His Son, Jesus. As a Man his appetite is defined in Hebrews 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Talk about a taste test! This was it for all time! Jesus tasted the evil curse and punishment called death. The soldiers mocked and taunted him with their cheap wine. Sweat and blood ran side by side down Jesus’ cheeks. But there was more. The most dreadful, awful, bitter cup He had to drink was the cup of the Father’s wrath. The cup of wrath that was filled with the bitter punishment for each and every single sin that you and I and everyone else who has ever lived has committed. And he drank in every…last…drop. He just couldn’t get enough. And it killed him.
Yet Jesus didn’t simply taste the bitterness of death. He chewed it up. He swallowed it down. And He spit it back out! In 1 Corinthians 15 St. Paul quotes from the prophet Isaiah when he writes “Death has been swallowed up in victory!”
Through the sacrificial, saving work of Christ on the cross, death has been swallowed up! This means that our famine and hunger has ended. The feast is here! It was Luther who pounded the table at Marburg and spoke from Latin, “hoc est corpum meam.” That is he quoted Jesus’ statement at the Last Supper, “This is my body.”
The forgiveness and love and mercy and salvation that was accomplished at Calvary is now present in the bread and wine by the power of the word. By Jesus own words we are called to gather together and receive His real body and real blood at this table as we partake of His Holy Supper. Here at His table he offers us the saving, nourishing food of His grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Here in the bread and wine, we join with him in a foretaste of the feast that will never end.
The famine is ended. The feast is here! Come. Taste and see. The Lord is good.
-Pastor L
