December 28: Of Sushi and Scripture

Zechariah 12:1-13:9

Revelation 19:1-21

Psalm 147:1-20

Proverbs 31:1-7

As we come to the end of the year, I want to echo Pastor Scott Taylor invitation to read the Bible.  As trite as the comparison seems, the one that comes to mind is sushi.  As a child, I absolutely refused to eat that "vile, raw fish" my parents insisted I try.  I was so certain I knew how it would taste, just by looking at it.  Why waste the calories on something so simple it was raw?  They finally got me to stop being so stubborn, to take a bite, to "taste and see".  That began a decades-long journey of discovery that has taken me to eleven countries and over a hundred restaurants.  And every time I think I know all there is to know about the basic maguro (or blue-fin tuna) sushi, I am surprised to either find something new, or revisit something wonderful.

Upon reflection, my resistance to reading the Bible was very similar to my resistance to sushi.  I had heard the story of Christmas and the Crucifixion, of Adam and Abraham, Noah, David and Solomon.  What more was there to know?  Why waste the time on something so old, surely it had been discredited by something new?  As with the sushi, I am grateful to my parents that they insisted I read.  Because even more than sushi, God's Word has to be experienced.  To get the full benefit, it cannot just be seen from a second-hand distance, it has to be pondered, sought, lived, realized.  Its experience is the revelatory moment, the "aha!" that comes only with immersion, a seminal moment that repeats and refreshes and deepens itself as one delves more deeply into God's revelation.  And I am grateful that they got me to "taste and see".

Unlike sushi, though, the stakes involved in Scripture are infinitely, eternally higher.  Scripture is a love letter from God to us, telling us who we are to Him and what is to come.  It is an invitation to relationship with "The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person", who "determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name", whose victory against the very forces that delude us into refusing to experience Him we read about in today's NT reading.  

So as I finish my last blog of the year, whether this is the first one you read or the last, thank you for joining us.  And we hope you were so blessed by Him from whom all blessings come that you will join us in 2020, and invite friends to taste and see.