Eucharistic Meditation

Matthew 4:2: After Jesus had fasted forty days and forty night, He afterward became hungry.

Jesus goes into the wilderness as the Last Adam and as the true Israelite. And like Adam and Israel, He is tested regarding food. He finds Himself surrounded by the stones of the desert, and He is tempted to think that His Father has given Him stones instead of bread (Farrer). He is tempted to murmur as Israel did. He is being tested. The test is whether He will test His Father, or trust Him.

Food is a common test in the Bible. We need food to live, and yet food comes from outside of us. Because we need food to live, we are forced to depend on the Giver of life for the substance of life, for our bread.

From the garden until the end of the world, food is a test. Adam was tested at a fruit tree. Israel was tested by lack of food in the wilderness. Later, Israel was tested by famine. When a man suspected his wife of being unfaithful, he took her to the temple for the rite of jealousy, which was a food test. At its heart, the test is whether we will recognize that we are creatures, entirely dependent on our Creator, or whether we will pretend that we're autonomous, independent of God.

This table is our food test. Here God puts food in front of us to see what is on our hearts, to test us, to know if we will obey and serve Him. Here the Lord draws near to sift. Paul said some of those who receive this meal get sick and die because they receive the meal wrongly. This is our food test.

It is also our food test because it comes with an implicit demand to fast. Satan wanted Jesus to break His fast by turning stones into bread. Satan wanted Jesus to dine at the table of demons. And that is the test for us as well. We cannot eat at the table of the Lord and at the table of demons. We cannot have communion with Jesus and His Father in the Spirit and then go yoke ourselves to some other communion. The test is whether we refuse other food because we have received food.

This is the double demand of the Lord's table, our food test: Keep the feast. But also, having kept the feast, keep the fast.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, August 05, 2007 at 08:20 AM

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