Eucharistic Meditation, June 20

Numbers 13:32

Throughout the OT, the land promised to Israel is described as a ?land flowing with milk and honey.?E This is an image of rich abundance, of course, but it is particularly an image of the rich abundance of food. God did not choose a land where Israel would suffer famine, hunger and thirst, but a land that would satisfy them with its fatness. In giving the land, Yahweh gave food and drink to His people with an open hand.

The 10 unfaithful spies don?t see it that way. In their view, the land is a very different sort of land. Instead of being a land that provides food, it is a land that makes its inhabitants food. It is a land that eats, not a land that feeds. The land will not fill Israel, but will be filled with Israel.

But this, we know, is simply a matter of their fearful unbelief. They had already admitted that the land does flow with milk and honey, and they brought back a cluster of grapes that had to be carried by two men (vv. 23, 27). When they shrank back in unbelief, however, their perception of the land changed; they ignored the evidence of their own senses and argued instead that the land would kill Israel.

In Christ, we have been brought into an even better land; Christ Himself is our promised land, the one ?in whom?Ewe live and move and the ?ground?Ethat provides us with abundant food. Each week, we are reminded that Christ is our land flowing with milk and honey, a land of bread and wine, who gives Himself as our food and drink. But unbelief can make this land too appear barren and unfruitful, threatening and dangerous. So, come to this table in faith, believing that the promised land has already been given. Come to this bread in faith, trusting that Christ will feed You. Receive the wine with thanksgiving, believing that Jesus is the source of all life and health. Because He is.