16th April 2019

‘Digestives’! Who ever gave that name to a chocolate biscuit? A doctor? A nutritionist? A gastroenterologist? Really! It’s like naming a box of Turkish Delight, ‘Duodenal Delicacies’, or a bag of Cherry Ripes, ‘Colonic Charms’. I’m a newcomer to these chocolate pleasures, and quite fond of them, but I wonder how many people pass them by in the aisles because of their gastral brand name. What a pity to think of a first-rate privilege forfeited, because of a second-rate name.

I wonder if some of the Easter words are missed and overlooked for a similar reason. Words like propitiation and justification and vicarious suffering and substitutionary atonement. Words that sound as daunting as ‘Digestives’, but are actually serious words with stunning meanings, and central to the Easter story. Words that describe the reason for Jesus’ death on the Cross, and words that capture that simple Easter confession: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

I still can’t figure out why a delicious chocolate biscuit is called a ‘Digestive’, but at least I suppose it has some relevancy in terms the said biscuit being consumed, deconstructed and absorbed. But I have figured out why the work at the Cross is called substitutionary atonement, because that is precisely what happened: a worthy, gracious and innocent Person stood in our place and paid the price for our sin. And O that that first-rate truth might be understood in our souls, and believed and digested.

DM 16^th April 2019