Grapes of Wrath

I want to do things a little differently for this post. I will copy and paste my field report about my “Jerusalem Approaches” field trip (Bethany, Bethlehem, Tekoa, etc.) onto a separate post, but today I wanted to talk about some things I learned from my Land and Bible class about wine. Yes, wine. You may not realize how significant grapes and wine are in God’s Word, but you could easily fill up an entire page with all of the allusions to grapes. We are so blessed to live on a moshav with “Biblical Gardens,” which basically consist of life-sized replicas and models of anything and everything having to do with the Bible, from a first-century synagogue to an ancient winepress. Of course, I pass by these every day, but I had no idea what most of them were until this week, when we went to see them for one of our classes.
The first thing we looked at was some grape vines. I never stopped to think about how vines have two parts: the vine itself, which is long and thick and supports the second part of the vine, the branches (where the grapes are produced). At first glance, the only thing you notice is the branches and the grapes, but the vine is what nourishes the branches and makes them beautiful. Each year, a worker from the moshav comes and cuts off the branches so that new branches can grow. When Jesus says that He is the vine in John 15, His hearers would have immediately associated this statement with the true Israel, which is what Scripture almost always refers to when it talks about vines. Christ was claiming to be the true Israel, and the source of all God’s blessing! And yet God has ordained for fruit to be produced by the branches, not the vine. At one point in the lecture, Bill, our professor, cut off a branch and threw it on the ground. It was completely worthless and dead… just as we are, apart from Christ.
We then went to a winepress, which is basically a huge box hewn out of rock, with a hole in the side to let the juice from the grapes drain out into a lower collecting vat. Whenever the Bible talks about harvesting grapes, think work. A lot of work. But it is almost always accompanied with great shouts of joy, because in the Jewish mindset, wine symbolizes joy. We got the opportunity to press grapes with our feet and watch the juice from the grapes stream into the vat. However, the pressing of grapes in Scripture became an image of God’s judgment and vengeance, because of the blood-like color and the pressing action. “Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great.” (Joel 3:13) Isaiah 63 talks about this, too, and there the Lord is seen as trampling so hard on the grapes that his garments are stained. This great judgment, which we can hardly fathom, should sober our hearts and motivate us to pray for the salvation of the lost with fervency and compassion.