Eucharistic meditation

Isaiah 3:13-15: Yahweh stands up to plead, and stands to judge the people. Yahweh will enter into judgment with the elders of His people and His princes: For you have eaten up the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the faces of the poor?

You are what you eat, and at this table, we eat bread and wine. So at this table, we are, and become, God’s field, His grain, His loaf, His bread; at this table, we are, and become, Yahweh’s vineyard, His beloved, planted and protected and cared for so that we might produce the wine that intoxicates God and man.

In Isaiah’s time, as we’ve seen, the leaders of Israel were cruel caretakers. They abused and devoured the vineyard of Israel, and they ground down the grain of the Lord, the poor of the land. Oppression characterizes much of Israel’s history. When Jesus told an allegorical parable of the history of Israel, he compared Israel to a vineyard managed by abusive tenants who refuse to pay the owner his due and who do not care for the vines.

In Jesus’ parable, the Son comes to collect, and the tenants kill Him. Ultimately, though, the owner comes to the tenants to destroy the wicked men and hand the vineyard over to others who will produce fruit.

That is the meaning of the Advent of the Son. He comes to throw down the wicked rulers, to drive out the evil tenants, and take back His own vineyard. He comes to deliver His field from abusive farmers, so that it can bear thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. He comes so that we can be what we eat at this table and become God’s field, God’s vineyard.

This is the good news of Advent: Rejoice, because He comes, He comes to judge the earth. Rejoice, because He comes: Jesus the farmer; Jesus the vintner.