You Are What You Eat
Scheduled for August 3
Somewhere
-- probably in II Hezekiah, I haven’t had a chance to look it up -- God gives
every college student the right to complain about the food. As the fortunes of
life would have it, in my undergraduate years I did not have the funds to move
out of the dorm, so I had a great deal of experience in complaining about dorm
food. A common sign in our dorm rooms was this: “Choose your meals carefully
in the cafeteria -- you are what you eat.” It gives one pause.
It
is still true, however. If your diet consists of cookies and ice cream, you
will soon begin to resemble an ice cream sundae -- every mound of it.
It
is true in the spiritual realm as well as in the physical realm. If you’re one
of those people who complains that there is too much sex and violence on your
video player, perhaps you ought to check out what you are checking out from the video
store.
The
positive sense of this is also true. If you take in -- would “devour” be the
right word? -- the Scripture, it changes you. You become what you have
“eaten,” greatly to your profit. When you listen to the Word, preached, taught
or read, you are taking it in, and you become what you “eat.”
This
is true also in Communion. Communion is a symbolic meal. One of the (many)
symbolic interpretations of this meal is this: You are “eating” the very body
and blood of Jesus Christ. Now, we know that our Lord’s body was like ours,
until the Resurrection. He ate, he drank, he felt pain -- He was a man just
like us. But after the resurrection, his body was different. It was still
recognizable as his body, but it was greatly different in kind. Paul puts it
this way:
(1
Cor 15:42-44 NIV) So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body
that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; {43} it is
sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power; {44} it is sown a natural body, it is
raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual
body.
By
taking in the body and blood of Christ you are -- symbolically -- becoming like
him; you are what you eat. You therefore become like Christ, presuming that
you partake with sincerity and repentance. Since you have taken in his body --
his nature, as it were -- you will share in that nature. We will be raised
from the dead just as He was raised from the dead.
The
meal is a spiritual one. It must be taken in a spiritual way -- in love, truth
and light. The result will be spiritual for now -- until the day when the
faith becomes sight, and He returns to claim those who love Him.
