I started reading a book on Eucharistic theology, entitled Blessed Are the Hungry.
It’s written by a Presbyterian pastor by the name of Peter Leithart (Ph.D. Cambridge). One chapter in which he comments on Zechariah 9:15 is particularly striking, and worth the price of the book.
So, without further adieu, I give you Zechariah 9:15 and a choice reflection from Dr. Peter Leithart:
“The LORD of hosts will protect them,
and they shall devour, and tread down the sling stones,
and they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine,
and be full like a bowl,
drenched like the corners of the altar.”
-Zechariah 915
“This suggests one dimension of symbolism of wine in the Lord’s Supper: it loosens our inhibitions so that we will fight the Lord’s battles in a kind of drunken frenzy. If this sounds impious, how much more Psalm 78:65, where the Divine Warrior Himself is described as a mighty man overcome with wine? Yahweh fights like Samson, but far more ferociously than Samson: He fights like a drunken Samson! Grape juice, it must be said, simply does not carry the same punch. Deprived of wine at the Lord’s table, it is no wonder that we fight our battles so timidly, no wonder we stay so nerdy and are constantly plagued by bullies. Wine emboldens the soldier for battle, and wine also flows at the victory celebration that follows. Those who devoured their enemies would devour a victory feast. This is the feast that we enjoy: the Lord has aimed his arrows at all our enemies, at the greatest of enemies– sin and death– and has driven them from the field. He makes us boisterous with wine, and He makes us flourish with grain and new wine.”
-Peter Leithart, Blessed are the Hungry
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