A TASTE SWEETER THAN HONEYCOMB
We have a large patch of English thyme just beyond the porch where Jan and I have our morning coffee. It forms the border of a path that curves between two of our flower beds. For the past few weeks, bees have been swarming over this patch of thyme as it has burst into blossoms. They are busily gathering its pollen and carrying it back to their hive. It may eventually become the thyme honey that soothes someone’s sore throat this winter.
Watching bees made me curious about references to bees and honey in the Bible. One of the most famous stories about bees is found in the Book of Judges. Samson, whose strength was legendary, finds a lion’s carcass where a swarm of bees have made their home. He scoops out some of their honey and enjoys its sweetness as he goes on his way. (Judges 14:8). While references to bees are infrequent in the Bible, their honey is mentioned frequently. Moses, for example, promises a land flowing with milk and honey to the Hebrews who flee from Egyptian slavery. According to the gospels, John the Baptizer is not just dressed in animal skins but lives on a diet of wild locusts and honey (Matthew 3:4).
Among the words to the wise in the Book of Proverbs is the instruction “My son, eat thou honey, for it is good.” (24:13) The word the author uses here for “good” is the Hebrew word tob. It is the same word that Genesis 1 uses when the Creator reviews the results of each day of creation and declares them good (tob). It’s also a crucial word in the story of Temptation and Fall. The first woman sees that the tree in the center of the garden is good (tob) to eat as well as for gaining wisdom, she takes its fruit. (Gen 3:6)
The temptation of the first man and woman to eat the fruit that is “good” may likely be in the mind of the author of Proverbs 24 when he instructs his reader to eat the honey because it is “good.” As Michael Edwards observes in The Perpetual Strangeness of the Bible the writer in Proverbs 24 is likely considering the Temptation and Fall story and recommending the eating of honey because it is sweet as “a blessed version of the action of Adam and Eve, the acquiring of genuine wisdom through participating, with zest, in the good still present in the fallen world.”
Yes, the world around us is often a vale of sorrow and pain. It is full of brutality and violence, of uncertainty and sometimes back-breaking and soul-numbing work. At the same time, goodness is still present in this flawed and wounded world of ours. As Ecclesiastes, that other book of wisdom sayings, admonishes, “I know that there is no good (tob) in humans, but for a man or woman to rejoice, and to do good (tob)…and enjoy the good (tob) of their labor, it is the gift of God.” (Ecc 3:12-13). Like buzzing honeybees we flit about in an uncertain, fallen world; but by doing good – even as the honeybee does good in creating something sweet—we discover a deep enjoyment of our lives.
And perhaps that deep, though sometimes fleeting, sweetness is a foretaste of the sweetness and joy we will one day know beyond this present life. The Israelites savor a foretaste of that promised land flowing with milk and honey as they pass through the wilderness. In Exodus 16:31, we are told that the manna that falls from heaven and that the Israelites gather daily “tasted like wafers made with honey.” In the same way, the fleeting sweetness of our everyday lives, like the taste of honey on our lips, is a foretaste of something greater. This is hinted at also in a seemingly odd detail in one of the resurrection stories. Resurrection is not just something that happens later beyond this present life. If we do good then we taste life’s goodness even in this present world that crucifies the innocent and buries the weak. In our experiences of sweetness, however small, we are enjoying a foretaste of the world to come. In Luke 24, the risen Christ appears to his disciples and asks them for something to eat. And the disciples offer him a piece of broiled fish and, and according to some early Greek manuscripts, a piece of honeycomb. The reference to honeycomb is included in the 14th-century Wycliffe Bible and the 1899 Roman Catholic Douai-Rheims Bible. So does the much-beloved King James Version. It says, “he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them.” (Lk 24:41-43)
The simple work of bees on my garden thyme leads into the heart of a deeper mystery. They point toward a truth more profound than that we should be “busy and bees” or remember that “kind words are honey to the soul.” The rest of the instructions on eating honey from Proverbs 24 link the honeycomb to divine Wisdom revealed in Jesus Christ: “Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Know also that wisdom is like honey for you: If you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.” (vss. 13-14)
When we savor even the smallest moments of goodness and sweetness, we are simultaneously being given a glimpse into a divine wisdom that lies unseen beyond and beneath any single moment of sweetness. We are lifted beyond the grief or frustration, the disappointment or worry that so easily engulf our hearts or minds and are instead reminded of a greater sweetness and joy that is ours. Our lives are held within an invisible web of sweetness and grace, a web in which we rest secure in having a future and a hope.
Blessings,
Pastor Thomas