Cedarville Magazine, Summer 2013

12 | Cedarville Magazine Our extended family was home for the weekend, and we ate out together before our children and grandchildren went their separate ways. Food poisoning comes on rather quickly and emphatically, and let me tell you, it was not a pretty picture. Seven out of 10 family members were affected. Sharing as a family is a gift from God, but this ... this was not what I’d call family fun! About seven hours later the vomiting and “other symptoms” began to abate, but during the hours that transpired, food had lost its appeal, and even the thought of it made me feel queasy for days to come. One visit to a restaurant that unintentionally serves tainted food can definitely affect your body and its desires! Hunger and thirst eventually returned. They came slowly, but they did come back. It began around 5 p.m. the day after Easter. Satisfied by His Sacrifice Hunger and thirst are normal, natural components of healthy lives, but for what are we truly hungry and thirsty? And how do we satisfy our cravings? Isaiah 55:1–2 says, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” These delicious verses exist in the context of the One introduced in Isaiah 52.This sin-bearing, suffering Servant was “wounded for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:5). Jesus willingly took upon Himself the unthinkable consequences of the sin of all peoples for all time. God, the Father, laid on Him the iniquity of us all (vs. 6). “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (vs. 7). Innocent and without resistance, the Servant set the table for a feast to be enjoyed by all who would come. I S A I A H 5 5 : 2 eat and by Robert Rohm ’68 “ W hy do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”