This picture is based on John 6:35-40 and was created for a pastor friend in Minneapolis. The specific focus my friend was eager to see expressed was Jesus’ call to “come to,” “look to,” and “believe in” Him, and so these became the center of the image.
Jesus’ invitation for any and all to come to Him is pictured in the pathway carved by His ransoming blood through the wilderness of the world, leading those who follow it into fellowship with God in Christ through the way opened in His flesh. The call to “look to” Jesus—specifically Jesus as He is the crucified and risen one—is echoed in the centrality of the silhouetted form of the slain and raised Lord. And finally, the command to believe (which summarizes and includes both “come to” and “look to”) is imaged in the table at which one feasts on the fullness of God in Christ.
That last part is significant. In John 6:35ff, we see Jesus’ call to “come to” and “believe” in Him slowly transform into a call to “feed upon” His flesh and blood as True Food and True Drink (cf. v.47-50). Whatever else may be bound up in this highly charged language, at the very least we see that coming to and believing in Jesus is more like satisfying our hunger at a lavish feast than it is agreeing with a body of teaching (as crucial as that agreement is). Coming to and believing in Jesus—entering into reconciled table-fellowship with God and others through the way opened by Christ’s death and resurrection—means receiving the crucified and risen Jesus who is the image of God as the food and drink who alone satisfies the deepest hunger and thirst of our soul (cf Isaiah 55:1-3)….It means entering by the work of the crucified and risen one, into the feast which is the crucified and risen one, there to enjoy table-fellowship with the crucified and risen one, in whom are united (by the Spirit) all His own and through whom alone we know and enjoy our God.
So may we be given grace to come to Him, look to Him, and believe in Him today, and so to receive by faith the true food and true drink of our Lord and God, the image and Word of the Father, the Living One who died and—behold—lives forevermore.
