Eat Me, Drink Me

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (‘which certainly was not here before,’ said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters.

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry.… However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.…

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!’…

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

---

If you are familiar with the above from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, then you know Alice’s dilemma of being not quite the appropriate size for a doorway. A change is needed, and the only appropriate catalyst is something to consume, which she takes willingly because of the delicious taste. Alas, for poor Alice, matters go awry and her state after drinking and eating is worse than before. A similar end comes to Edmund Pevensie immediately after eating Turkish Delight in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, though while Alice partook out of need, Edmund did so from selfishness and became enslaved. We can see from these literary examples, and also from common sense, that what we feed on has a direct influence on our outcome: healthy eating leads to soundness; unhealthy eating leads to corruption.

Where do we go for healthy eating? What is proper to consume? Probably one of the best things to take in is wisdom, of which the following provided the catalyst for this post:

Come to me, you who desire me,
And take your fill of my fruits.
For the remembrance of me is sweeter than honey,
And my inheritance is sweeter than the honeycomb.
Those who eat me will hunger for more,
And those who drink me will thirst for more.
He who obeys me will not be put to shame,
And those who work with me will not sin.

Sirach 24:19–22

Wisdom calls out and promises that not only will it be pleasing but will continually build desire to feed at that table ever more. Wisdom literature and the prophets also uses this same motif of the call to dine:

Proverbs 9:1–5	Isaiah 55:1
Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars; She has slaughtered her meat, She has mixed her wine, She has also furnished her table. She has sent out her maidens, She cries out from the highest places of the city, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, “Come, eat of my bread And drink of the wine I have mixed.”	Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price.

With the invitation to eat and drink made, we return to the question of source. Where do we find wisdom that we may take that in? The initial offer tells us from where we should never partake. The serpent, in tempting the woman, described the effect of eating as being like God, able to know or distinguish good and evil (Ge 3:5), which the woman correctly understood as “desirable to make one wise” (Ge 3:6); however, this was not the way God had intended wisdom to be learned. By eating from the wrong source, they chose poorly. Better would have been to abide in the Divine presence and commune with Him.

God continued to reach out to His creation, offering times of communion with Himself. One of these came on Mount Sinai after the people of Israel had come out of Egypt.

Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand. So they saw God, and they ate and drank. (Ex 24:9–11)

Here we find the beginning of a recurring theme found within the Mosaic Covenant: God communes with His people and they with each other. On an individual level, this can be seen in the Peace Offering wherein God, priest, and offerer share together in the sacrifice. The individual was welcome into fellowship with God because of the peace between them. On a corporate level, as part of their calendar, Israel was required to come together for three yearly feasts: Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits (or Harvest), and Tabernacles (or Ingathering) (Ex 23:14–16; Le 23:4–14, 33–43). These feasts brought the people of God together in systematic fashion to instill in them the need for fellowship beyond the family or tribal unit. All the elect are equally welcome participants as one family.

As important as the times of communion would become, there needed to be an established basis for that communion. Not long after being baptized with Moses in the Red Sea crossing (Ex 14:26–31; cf. 1 Cor 10:1–2), the people became hungry and thirsty being forced to rely on God’s daily provision of manna (Ex 16:14–16) and water (Ex 17:1–7). This reliance would serve as a picture of needed daily spiritual intake from Him enabled by regularly teaching future generations the Lord’s commands (De 6:1–9). It would be this regular feeding on and drinking in the good Word of God that would feed their souls and provide wisdom and nourishment characteristic of a holy people. Not that this endeavor would bring the follower into a right or better relation with his Lord, but because he has believed what has been graciously promised, so the commands are not bitter, but because they are “more to be desired than gold” and “sweeter than honey and the honeycomb” (Ps 19:10).

Feasting continues as a theme in the New Testament but takes an interesting turn when, in a reference to the manna, Jesus taught that He was the bread of life, which would sate the desire man needed if one believed (John 6:33, 35, 48). Indeed, He seemed to ramp up the challenge of those listening to pronounce the seemingly impossible:

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”… Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” (John 6:51–57)

The net effect of this revelation was that all but the twelve turned away from following Him, yet this was, and continues to be, the very thing needed by all. As the true bread of life having come down, Jesus delivers to us what we need for true life—a spiritual eating and drinking through His Word. This would later be made most graphically as Jesus, on the night before He was crucified, took bread and wine and said this is My body, this is My blood. All that He taught and accomplished on earth was coming to its expected conclusion. In a most vivid fashion, He emphatically proclaims that He, in His fullness, is with the bread and cup coming to us as we partake and are built up in Him. Paul later elaborates on this when he teaches:

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.  (1 Co 10:16–17)

As the visible elements are in communion with the body and blood, we have unity when we partake of the same, since Jesus Himself is being received.

Unlike Alice, who needed something to eat or drink to make herself appropriate for the topsy-turvy, nonsense Wonderland, we live in a nonsense world but look for a city whose builder and maker is God. We need the true food and true drink satisfying our spiritual hunger and thirst, and that brings “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). It is this eating and drinking that the Christian turns to and continues in to grow in Christ.