I have heard people use this figure of speech all my life: You are what you eat. To be honest I can’t decide if I am a pig or a cow. Maybe, I am a cow that eats like a chicken! And, though I don’t believe we are what we eat, just to be safe I shy away from fruits and nuts. But, is there any significance to our daily lives in what we eat? What about the Last Supper of our Lord?
“For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:23-24). Isaiah 53 gives us a picture of a “suffering servant.” And, in that wheat that is used to make the bread we see the seed suffering. The wheat is picked and left for the winter to dry. After it becomes dry, it is ground up and then subject to fire before it becomes the finished product: bread. Like our Savior the grains of wheat of wheat suffer before becoming a new product; Our Savior suffered and died and was resurrected in a glorified body.
“After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (I Corinthians 1:25). The grape, like our Savior, also goes through suffering before it becomes a new product. They are plucked from their life source: the vine. Then it is subjected to a winepress that squeezes it’s life’s juices out. Our Savior lost much of his life’s fluids hanging on a cross through nail holes and the piercing holes of a crown of thorns. And, as his dead body hung lifeless on the Cross a soldier’s sword pierced his side allowing the fluids that kept the Savior alive to flow freely to the ground just as the wine press squeezes the life’s juices from the grape. But, without the death of the grape there would be no grape juice just as with out the death of the Savior there would have been no resurrection; there would have been no New Covenant.
Just as the bread takes many grains to make and the wine many grapes, so to the Body of Christ many people: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another (Romans 12:5). As we follow the risen Savior and walk in a newness of life we become the grains of wheat and the grapes. Like the grapes and grains we will suffer: Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake (Matthew 5:11). And, like the grapes and grains we will become a finished product: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). What Christ ate at the last supper gives us a picture into the life that he lived, what does your supper say about you?
Until next time May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You: All Y’all!
Bobby Cohoon
North Carolina, USA
bobby@bobbycohoon.com
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