Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ is derived from Psalm 34:8 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” John Piper likes the translation of savoring which colors the passage in a subtly different hue. As always Piper challenges us to see more of God so that we would further embrace and honor him. This 6 part video comes across as an extended sermon of encouragement and exhortation.
For instance the challenge, if we love Christ because he heals us, if we love Christ because he promises security (financially or physically) if we love Christ because we look forward to a happy place called heaven, we are missing the centrality of Christ. We should love, cherish and value Christ because of Christ. Certainly there are manifestations of who Christ is all around us, the power of a thunderstorm, the beauty of a rose the fact that Christ actually talks to the wind, and the wind obeys. But the thrust of what Piper wants us to see is Christ vs. the secondary or tertiary effects of Christ’s glory.
Another topic Piper stresses is the seeming contradictions Christ can present. Piper argues we should embrace these, for who wants a God that can be easily explained or fit into some neat category, ultimately that is not a God that would be our creator, rather is a god created out of our own mind. Piper asks the question, is Christ a Lion or a Lamb, or is He a Lion-like Lamb, or a Lamb-like Lion. He uses the example of how Christ throughout his 3 years of ministry talks in parables that confuse the Pharisees. Such that rather than after feeding the 5,000 declaring I am the Messiah, he is in the midst of a ‘Sermon on the Mount’, talking about the Meek inheriting the earth. Instead Christ waits to declare He’s the Messiah while standing totally beaten and bloody, spit upon and ridiculed. Thus when asked at what would seem to us the low-point of His ministry, “Are you the Messiah?” the bloodied Lamb of God declares to the surrounding priesthood, I am. Piper stresses we need to embrace this awesome Lamb-like Lion, even though we may never totally understand all the contradictory facets of our God and Christ.
This is the Savior that calls us to leave family behind, yet calls us as husbands to sacrificially love our wives to the point of dying for them if need be. Probably the easiest to grasp illustration Piper uses is the picture of being yoked to a plow. In short we are called to take up our yoke, a light burden and follow Christ. The picture painted is of us being strapped into an old time plow, we’re going to pull the yoke, and Christ has his hands on the plow behind us. Just as we’re ready for the day’s plowing Christ puts the plow into the ground. The plow though is configured in such a manner that we are now dangling a couple of feet off the ground while Christ, behind us, pushes us and the plow through the sod. Christ is doing all the work; the hardest part is we look rather silly and totally pointless on the front end of this rig.
The point of this study is for all of us to look to Christ only. To cherish Christ only, regardless of how foolish we may look, for His yoke is light.
Reviewed by Ted Anderson
