Before he said a word, his tousled hair and bemused smile identified him as a skeptical Harvard student. "So, what's this about?" he asked, glancing at the conversation starters we'd put up outside of the Science Center. I wanted to tell him about a Jesus who made sense. Not one who would ask him to drink blood and eat flesh.
John 6:48-59
"I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." At that, the Jews argued among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. "Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna your ancestors ate—and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever." He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
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? 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.
When have you softened something about Jesus to make him more palatable?
What's the difference between admiring Jesus and depending on him the way you do for food?
Is there an area of your life where you are trying to follow Jesus in a respectable way?
Text a friend a line from this passage that makes you uncomfortable. Ask them, "Why do you think Jesus was so graphic here?" and see where the conversation goes.
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