Messiahs and the grape

Why do some grown Americans walk around in Stetson hats and want to look like cowboys? 

     The reason is simple: like all relatively young nations, the American people are keen to recall the stories of how the nation arose. It’s all wrapped up in the myth of ‘winning the Wild West.’ And, as is typical in such situations, the story is couched in terms of an overarching story—we call it a meta-narrative. In their case, the American wrap their story within a framework of ‘Cowboys and Indians.’ So wearing a Stetson hat creates an image that resonates with their internal narrative ... which itself helps reinforce ideas of group identity.

      The phenomenon is interesting because every nation on earth has its own stories. They may be good history (although only a tiny proportion do bear careful scrutiny). More importantly, these stories help people to understand how they reached the present time.

      The British no longer have a social narrative for adults in this sense, though think of knights in shining armour; think of King Arthur. The ancient Jews did too. Like other racial groupings, they wrapped their narrative in a simple theme. In their case, the metanarrative concerns wine and the means of its production: grapes and vineyards.

      We don’t knew when and where this particular idea began, but an educated guess suggests the conquest of the promised land under Moses’ successor, Joshua. The story in Numbers 13:23 tells how Joshua’s spies saw a bunch of grapes so large it took two men to carry it.

      Maybe. But the theme of wine and grapes and vineyards occurs amazingly often in the Old Testament, and fairly often in the New. For example, the worst sin of King Ahab was to murder Naboth and steal his Vineyard (1 Kings 21). The story in Kings implies that taking the inheritance of a vineyard was worse than killing Naboth.

      Isaiah and Ezekiel actually identify Israel with a vineyard: Isaiah says of Israel, ‘Let me sing a love song to my beloved con cerning his vineyard.’ And Psalm 80:8 says that God ‘called a vine out of Israel.’ It’s hardly a surprise that the last book in the Bible also gives a new twist to the metaphor when it talks about the ‘grapes of wrath.’

      The Jewish nation had an unhappy time for hundreds of years, following its brutal subjugation by superpower after superpower. During that time, this metanarrative centring on grapes and wine underwent significant editing and transformation: it was soon linked inextricably with the salvation of the people and therefore with ideas about the promised messiah: some people even said the messiah would be born inside a vineyard, and be immune to the potency of fermented grapes!

      These ideas explain why, when King Herod re-built the Temple in Jerusalem, he made sure he covered its facade with intricate carvings of grapes. And the Messiah’s reign was expected to centre around the Temple. That’s why Jesus’ clearing of the Temple Courts caused so much worry and confusion: his very presence was a messianic claim.

This mix of ideas helps explain some of their odder details in the Gospels:

• Jesus’ first miracle was to turn water into wine (John 2). This story showed Jesus had a firm gasp of folklore, for a further prophecy said that when the messiah came, ‘wine would flow as freely as water’.
• Jesus himself called himself ‘the true vine’ (John 15:5).
• And, most importantly of all, because grapes yield wine, Jesus instructed us to continue his memory using wine: ‘drink ye all of this. This wine is my [life]-blood’ (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25).