Eucharistic meditation

Isaiah 7:14-16: Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son and she will call His name Immanuel.  He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.  For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

As Pastor Sumpter noted in the sermon this morning, Isaiah delivered this central prophecy of the incarnation in specific historical circumstances.  The Northern Kingdom, Israel, had allied with the Arameans in order to attack Judah, to pressure them to join an alliance against the rising Assyrian empire.  In that context, the coming of a virgin-born child, Immanuel, is a sign that the two kings will be defeated and Judah will be delivered.

As Pastor Sumpter pointed out, the way Isaiah makes that point is important.  When Immanuel comes, Isaiah says, He will eat curds and honey.  With Judah threatened by allied forced of Israel and Aram, Isaiah prophesies about a child’s diet.  Why?

“Curds and honey” is a variation on the more familiar description of the land as a land flowing with “milk and honey.”  When the Lord first promised Moses that He would lead Israel out of Egypt, He promised to bring them to a “good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8).  Later in Isaiah 7, the prophet promises that someday “because of the abundance of the milk produced he will eat curds, for everyone who is left within the land will eat curds and honey” (v. 22).

Isaiah is prophesying that Yahweh will remove the threat, retain a remnant in the land, and that they will enjoy the fruits of the land.  Eventually, it will be like a new conquest, with the remnant of Judah enjoying curds and honey in the land flowing with milk and honey.

There appears is perhaps another dimension to this as well.  Two references to “good and evil” remind us of Adam and Eve in the garden.  The child whose name is Immanuel and who is the sign that the bounty of the land will be restored is a new Adam.

Isaiah was ultimately prophesying, as Matthew makes clear, of the coming of the Son in flesh, the advent of Immanuel in the most literal sense, God with us and sharing our humanity.  And the rest of Isaiah’s promise is also for us.  Immanuel came to deliver us from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to preserve a remnant, to share the abundance of the land of promise.  Jesus has been born; Immanuel has come.  Let us therefore keep the feast, enjoy the fruits of the earth, a land flowing with milk and honey.