John makes it clear that everyone who came to hear Jesus teach in the synagogue was offended. No, scandalized. Eat his flesh? Drink his blood? It's repulsive. Next time you're at a friend's house, tell them you ate the flesh and drank the blood of Jesus. See how it goes. These words are so challenging that many try to soften them, "Oh, Jesus was just foreshadowing communion. He's talking about bread and wine." But he isn't inviting us to a pleasant religious ceremony. His language is deliberately incendiary. You can eat manna from heaven, or even a communion wafer, and still die. It's not enough. What happens to bread when you eat it? It gets pulverized, drowned in hydrochloric acid, and squeezed through miles of tubing until it is unceremoniously ejected as a desiccated husk. We cannot make the crucifixion digestible. It is beautiful only if it is ugly. The living bread was given for the life of the world. Jesus endured physical agony, social humiliation, and spiritual torment because he loves us. To respond to this sacrifice with "That's nice" doesn't meet the moment. Jesus is saying, "I must get into your system, expel your selfishness, and transform you as I take up residence in your life. If you want to have my life, first you must die." We cannot feed on Jesus and remain respectable. I didn't say any of that to the student outside the Science Center. I gave him a sanitized version, trying to appeal to his intellectual curiosity. He smiled politely and walked to class. I wonder what would have happened if I'd read John 6 to him.