By Doug Redford
In Hebrews 2:9, the writer of this epistle describes Jesus as having “suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Consider our five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Out of those five, the sense that requires the most personal involvement with an item is taste.
Picture a parent’s effort to persuade a child to try a new food. It isn’t enough for the parent to say:
- “I’ve looked at it; it looks good.”
- “I heard it cooking; it sounds good.”
- “I smelled it; it smells really good.”
- “I touches it; it’s okay for you to put in your mouth.”
The most effective tactic for the parent to use is to say, “Here, I’m going to taste it myself. Mmm, it’s so good. Now you try it.” That still may not work, but the chances improve if the parents have tasted the food themselves.
You can see, hear, and smell food cooking from a distance. You have to come near it to touch it. But to taste it, you have to get right up to it and put it into your mouth.
Before the cross, Jesus had seen death’s impact, he had heard the cries of those who had lost friends and loved ones, he had touched the dead, and he had smelled death—a smell that Martha wanted to avoid with the opening of Lazarus’s tomb (John 11:39). But at the cross, Jesus tasted death. He sank his teeth into it and experienced the full measure of its indescribable pain and horror. We could even compare Eve and Adam’s tasting of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (which resulted in death) with Jesus tasting death at the “tree,” meaning the cross, which is sometimes in Scripture called the tree (Galatians 3:13, NASB).
During Communion, whenever we drink the cup of juice, representing Jesus’ blood, we should recall what Jesus prayed in Gethsemane concerning his approaching suffering: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). We can get into the habit of taking the cup so casually. Jesus’ anguish over his cup was so intense that “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Yet he still drank that cup—every drop—so that we might drink the “cup of thanksgiving” (1 Corinthians 10:16).
Doug Redford has served in the preaching ministry, as an editor of adult Sunday school curriculum, and as a Bible college professor. Now retired, he continues to write and speak as opportunities come.
Thank you dear Jesus