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True Food, and True Drink (John 6:52-59)

 The leadership was stunned by what Jesus had just previously said: he's going to give himself as bread for the life of the world. But it is more than just the oddity of what he said. We'll see as we go along here that what Jesus says is downright shocking and offensive to the hearers in this culture.

He starts off with, "Truly, truly…" to indicate that he's going to teach something new with authority. And then he tells us that we have to eat his flesh, and drink his blood. The children of Israel were commanded not to eat any meat that contained the blood of an animal. Human cannibalism is even worse. Jesus knows exactly how offensive this sounds to the people who heard him. Not only does he say it, but he doubles down, so to speak.

I think we have to deal with the question of whether Jesus is speaking figuratively. In a sense it's obvious that he is, but we should not think that belief in Jesus is somehow opposed to eating his flesh, and drinking his blood. This text is about the Eucharist, in my opinion. Scholars note that this is the only one of the four Gospels which does not contain a narrative of Jesus instituting the Lord's Supper, or Eucharist. Therefore, it has been traditionally believed that this so-called, "Bread of Life discourse" replaces the institution narratives in the other Gospels.

The straightforward reading of this whole section would be that if we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we will have eternal life. The theology surrounding the Eucharist is somewhat technical, but I think we can know that believing that we are receiving the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist is exactly what he wanted us to believe. And it is not somehow opposed to believing in Jesus as our Savior, because he is giving himself to us. If he were not God, he could not do this. Back in verse 54, that word for, "eats" is pretty graphic, more like "gnaws."

He wraps this section up by saying that his power to give eternal life comes from the Father who sent him. We can look back at the episode of the Israelites receiving the manna in the desert, (Exodus 16) and know that it was a great gift, but it was pointing to this greater Gift.

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