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Printer Friendly VersionHebrews 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little
lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered
death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Over the years, we have developed a few traditions at our church
that revolve around some tastes of Christmas. Every year the first Saturday
practice for the children’s program includes pizza and making delicious
sugar cookies, which the kids delight in decorating and devouring. It’s
part of the Christmas tradition. For the last 10 years our teens have had
a Christmas party with Michelle and I where we make homemade donuts. The teens
bring toppings like chocolate frosting, sprinkles, and powdered sugar. I don’t
know which is more fun, making the donuts or eating them! The season just
wouldn’t seem complete without these tastes of Christmas. You probably
have them too, special Christmas treats or meals that come to mind when you
think of this season. A couple of those for me are peanut blossom cookies
and red velvet cake. Mmm, the tastes of Christmas!
When David wrote about his life with God, he used the sense
of taste to describe what it was like, “Taste and see that the Lord
is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8). First
Samuel 13:14 says that when God “sought out a man after his own heart”
to be the leader of His people, He chose David. If anyone had tasted and seen
that the Lord was good, it was David. His heart was consumed with a pursuit
of God. He didn’t just nibble a little on the God-life like a catfish
nibbling enough to nudge a bobber. He feasted on life with God. We get a little
glimpse into David’s life with God in this psalm that starts with worship.
“I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my
lips” (v. 1). When David thought about his life with God, it caused
him to worship. He couldn’t help but praise God, and for good reason.
David had discovered firsthand that when you call out to God, He answers.
In David’s case, God answered with salvation and deliverance, provision
and protection. He answered not just by being the kind of God who could get
David out of the jam he was in, but by being the kind of God who could make
an everyday difference. David didn’t just have a crisis experience with
a get-me-out-of-a-mess God. He knew an every-day relationship with God. So
when David wrote, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” I don’t
think he had a bite-sized sample in mind. David feasted on his life in God.
He knew God as savior, deliverer, protector, and provider, and he wanted everyone
else to get in on this life. “Taste and see.”
I think that’s why so many people have found in David
an example of how to nurture a walk with God. He’s transparent. He didn’t
say, “Life is always good,” but he said, “God is good.”
In the Psalms we see the good and the bad, David’s joys and frustrations,
victories and failures. We see the times David was upset and didn’t
understand what was happening. But what comes shining through no matter the
circumstance is this: David had acquired a taste for life with God.
Along with the tastes of Christmas, a couple weeks ago, Michelle
and I went to the Kansas City District Christmas dinner with the Cantrells
and Skeens (turkey, ham, sweet potato casserole, green beans, cheesecake).
Wonder-Wanda watched our kids while we were gone. Our youngest son Blake had
been struggling with a cough for a few days and we’d been trying different
cough medicines. While we were gone Blake started coughing. His big sister
Brooke convinced Wanda that Blake had to take the grape-flavored generic medicine
that tasted more like nuclear waste than any grape ever grown. It was the
worst-tasting medicine on the shelf and Brooke was adamant about it. “He
has to take this kind.” When we got home and found out about it, Michelle
told me how terrible this particular medicine was and said I should try it.
I would have been quite content just to take her word for it but she insisted.
(Wonder where Brooke gets it?!) I’ve never tasted anything like it.
I don’t know how Blake got it down. It was the worst thing I’ve
ever had. The next thing we did was throw that almost-full bottle of medicine
in the trash because we didn’t want anyone else to have the terrible
experience of tasting it.
There is a taste that’s worse than any medicine out there.
It’s worse than a ruined recipe, and even worse than anything a person
would eat on Fear Factor. It’s the taste of sin and it tastes like death.
The death of relationships. The death of innocence. The death of trust. It
tastes like the death of wholeness, the death of peace, the death of families.
Sin tastes like the death of purity. The death of joy. The death of happiness.
Sin is like a cheap diet drink. It might taste OK initially but the aftertaste
will get you every time. That’s sin. Sins of rebellion and rejection,
of unfaithfulness & disobedience. Sins of attitude like pride, anger,
and bitterness. Sins of action. Sins of thought and sins of neglect. Sins
we think no one else knows about. Sins we think only affect us. The flavors
of sin may appear to be different but in the end it all tastes the same; sin
tastes like death. The taste of sin was medicine we were all going to have
to take because all of us were guilty. Romans 3:23 says the wages of sin,
(and we add, the result of sin, the taste of sin) is death, and it’s
what we all had coming.
But Christmas reminds us that when it was time for us take our
medicine, God stepped in. In the fullness of time He sent His Son as a baby
to come to our world and make us well. In His infinite mercy and grace Jesus
took our medicine and threw away the bottle. He tasted death so we wouldn’t
have to. That’s how the preacher in Hebrews describes it. [Read Hebrews
2:8-9]. He tasted death, took our medicine.
Not only did Jesus taste death for us, He set the table for
a feast of life. Abundant life. Joy-filled life. A life where every single
day we can know intimacy and friendship with God. Jesus not only took our
medicine, but He spread the table with a feast of a relationship with Him,
and He invites us to do more than sample or nibble, or take an occasional
taste of grace. He invites us to sit down at the table and stay there, day
in and day out: at Christmas, Easter, and every Sunday in between; on Sunday
and Wednesday, and every day in between. He tasted death so we wouldn’t
have to, and invites us to life in Him, a life I can only describe as a feast.
The story of Christmas is a lot about tastes. Ultimately, Christmas
is about what God did to keep all of us from having to take the sickening
taste of sin. But Christmas isn’t just about a taste we want to avoid.
It’s also about a taste we want to embrace. It’s the taste of
a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. One of the tastes of
Christmas was written about years before the Babe was born in Bethlehem when
David said it well, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Wouldn’t it be great if this Christmas we did more than
sample the taste of life in Christ? He invites us to feast on the taste of
an abundant life that comes through a personal, daily, intimate relationship
with Jesus. I invite you today, because He invites us: O taste and see that
the Lord is good.
Communion: Bread and juice. These too, are the tastes of Christmas.
They taste like forgiveness, hope, restoration. They taste like the love of
God given freely to us. This feast at God’s Table can taste like life
to us, because Jesus tasted death for us.
Benediction: 1 Peter 2:2-3, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual
milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted
that the Lord is good.”