Twice in scripture – Ezekiel 3 and Revelation 10 – a spokesperson of God is told to eat a scroll containing a prophecy to be proclaimed, God’s Word for His people. God wanted His Word to be taken internally … digested and comprehended and made a part of His spokesperson.

The apostle John tells us in the opening chapter of his gospel that the Word of God for His people is Jesus.

Jesus came to this world, not by whirlwind or meteor, but as a baby laid to rest in a manger. We get our English word “manger” from the French verb manger, “to eat.” Jesus’ mother cradled Him in a food trough. He came to be consumed – consumed by His passion for His Father’s house; for the people He came to populate it with … you and me.

John recounts this zeal for God’s house early in his gospel – chapter two, right after the changing of water to wine – where Jesus drives the selfishness and convenience and animal nature from the temple; where He predicts that God’s temple destroyed He will raise up in three days.

By the sixth chapter, John records Jesus speaking of Himself as the “bread of heaven;” that we should eat His flesh and drink His blood. Whether Jesus is foreshadowing His last supper with his closest disciples, perhaps we can’t know for certain. But all three of the other gospel writers (Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22) agree that Jesus said the bread was His body, and the cup was His blood.

And His servant Paul would later add in his instruction to Corinth (1 Corinthians 11): “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

Jesus’ birth, His life, His teaching, His miracles of helping, His death, and His resurrection – these are the gospel; what all scripture points toward. This is Jesus, the Word of God, not in a nutshell … but in a morsel of bread and a sip of the blood of the grape.

Let’s proclaim it together.