#DailyDevotion Taste & See, The LORD Is Good
Introit (Ps. 132:13–16; antiphon: Ps. 34:8 ) 8Taste and see how good the LORD is; happy is the man who takes refuge in Him. 13The LORD chose Zion, wanting it for His home: 14”Here is where I will stay forever. Here I will be on My throne because that is what I want. 15I will certainly bless her food and satisfy her poor with bread. 16I will dress her priests in salvation, and her people, whom I love, will shout happily.
The introit for this Sunday begins with Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see how good the LORD is; happy is the man who takes refuge in Him.” It’s an interesting turn of phrase. How does one taste and see the LORD is good? With faith! What does Jesus tell us John chapter 6? 29“What God wants you to do…is to believe in Him Whom He sent.” Then he says, 35“I am the Bread of Life…Come to Me, and you will never be hungry. Believe in Me, and you will never be thirsty.” Jesus tells us the eating and drinking that he is talking about is having faith in him in verse 29, which is the key to the rest of the chapter concerning eating and drinking his flesh and blood. When we trust Jesus and his promises, his work for our salvation, then we are indeed tasting and seeing that the LORD is good.
Happy or blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Again what else is taking refuge in the LORD Jesus Christ than believing his promise and trusting in his work of salvation for you. You are happy and blessed because your conscience can be at rest before the Father. You have no fear of the coming judgment because you know Christ Jesus has already taken eternal damnation away from you. Taking refuge in Christ makes you blessed because in him you have the love of God.
Zion here is no longer just some hill in Jerusalem. No, the Zion the psalmist speaks of his the one Hebrews 12 speaks about, 22“No, you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” Revelation also speaks of her, 212”And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God in heaven, dressed as a bride, ready to meet her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! God’s home is among the people, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.”
It is in this Zion, the New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven which the psalmist speaks. It is this Zion, the Church, which he makes his home. Here the LORD Jesus Christ stays forever and makes his home. In this Zion Revelation says of us in chapter 3:12, “I will make you a pillar in the temple of My God, and you will never leave it again.” Being a pillar in the temple of God here is to be his royal priest. Here he blesses us with food and bread as he shows us in Revelation chapter 22:2, “On each side of the river is a tree of life, producing twelve kinds of fruit, for each month its own fruit, and the leaves of the tree are to heal the nations.” There will be no lack of anything in that place. Which takes us back to the antiphon, “Taste and see how good the LORD is; happy is the man who takes refuge in Him.”
Heavenly Father, give us your Holy Spirit so we may have faith in Christ Jesus, your only begotten Son, and through faith in him taste and see how good you are now and when you bring us into Zion, your holy city. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.