Across the Pastor’s Desk by Mark Boorsma

Psalm 34 includes this invitation and observation: O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.

Never in my life have I ever been so popular as those glorious times in college when a package for me would arrive in the mail.  Grandma would bake batches of two kinds of cookies — chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin — then box them up and mail them to me.  Whether it was eagle-eyed classmates spotting me carrying the package back to the dorm, or whether it was sharp-nosed dorm-mates catching a whiff of them through the paper-thin walls of Kildahl Hall, it seemed like dozens of people just miraculously knew whenever those homemade cookies arrived. Feasting would follow forthwith.

I suppose I could have worked harder at keeping them to myself. Hoarding and hiding them would have made them last longer, certainly.  But the truth was, it was great fun to share that box of tasty love sent by Grandma.

To look at me, you would understand that I rarely miss a meal. I do so like to eat. Nor can I help but notice the ample abundance of scriptural reference to food and feasting. For a few examples, manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16), a feast of rich food in Isaiah 25:6, the loaves and fish Jesus shared with a crowd, and the multiple instances of wedding feasts. Food and feasting are featured frequently in scripture. In fact, the followers of Jesus are commanded to feast upon him in the Eucharist.

So I’d like to suggest my box-of-cookies illustration as a parable of faith. The Divine Baker daily sends you a box of edible love that tastes, well, heavenly. It’s so delicious you might well be tempted to keep it all for yourself. But it’s more fun to share — to bring smiles to the faces of others as you share such sweet goodness all around.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Mark Boorsma is the pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church in Albert Lea.