This message is based on a reading from John 6:47-58. To read this passage now, click here.

What is your reaction to this reading this morning? Is it a bit too morbid for a Sunday morning? A bit grotesque, perhaps? Does it shock you? Do you think that a passage that seems to promote cannibalism might be a bit much for a rural church to listen to, especially with so many other problems in the world. Does it surprise you, perhaps, that this passage is even in Scripture? 

One thing that surprises me is where this conversation takes place in John’s gospel. It takes place very early in the gospel. It’s shortly after Jesus feeds the five thousand, but several chapters before he even begins mentioning that he will be put to death, and maybe as much as a year and half before he shares the communion meal with them. After he feeds the five thousand, he sends the disciples on ahead, while he goes further up the mountain to spend some time alone and to pray. He joins them later that evening by walking on the water to come out to their boat. 

They get to shore in Capernaum, and again the crowds gather all around them. He begins to rebuke them, telling them they aren’t interested in who He really is, they just want to see the miracles, maybe get another free meal. From there, He segues into this conversation about being the bread of life. 

As we look into this, I want to talk about two things to set the context, sort of background stuff, so we might understand this passage a little better. Then, there are two things that we should understand from this passage, things for us to take away from it to shape our lives of faith today. 

First, as we talk about the background context of this passage, we need to understand what bread is. It’s not just a food source; it’s symbolic of all food. In this context, bread is seen as the essential thing we all need in life. We all need food, without food we all die, bread is food. In the ancient context, as the heart meant a persons soul, bread meant food, and without food, there’s no life.

John is telling us here, that just as bread is essential for life, Jesus is the essential for life. To refuse the offer of Jesus is the refuse the essential of life. And this is two-fold, not just do we loose out on really living life for all it’s worth in this world, but without Jesus, we miss out on the world to come, as well. Accepting the offer of Jesus is to find life, a life that gives real meaning in this world, and the glory of the world to come. 

Another bit of background, and this may be a little complicated. While we might think of eating flesh as a little grotesque, to the people of Israel, who had grown up with animal sacrifices, they would have understood it very differently. In ancient sacrifices, the entire animal was rarely burned on the altar. Usually only a small portion was burned. Some of the rest was given to the priests as part of their pay, their provisions. I’m not sure about in the Jewish animal sacrifices, but there are references in pagan sacrifices that a portion was prepared for the worshipper to make a feast within the temple courts. 

When they did this, when they had a feast like this, god himself was considered to have been there. And it was held that when the animal was offered to the god, that the god had entered into the animal, and so the worshipper, when he ate the meat, was literally eating the god, in this way they were, in a sense, being filled with the god they worshipped. 

This is the understanding in the denominations that hold to transubstantiation (Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopal, some Lutherans perhaps), that at the moment of blessing, the elements of communion actually become the flesh and blood of Jesus, and to partake in the elements, we are actually physically partaking the flesh and blood of Jesus. In this way he is actually physically entering our bodies, and therefore, we are filled with Christ, He is physically dwelling within us.

This understanding came from the understanding of the pagan animal sacrifices, when the god they were sacrificing to was thought to be present in the meat they were eating, the meat that had been offered to that god.

With this understanding, it’s likely that the people Jesus was talking to, would begin to understand something of Jesus’ sacrificial role long before Jesus started to tell them he was going to be killed. 

Understanding this background, we can get a little more out of the context of his message here. Now let’s see what John wants us to understand as he writes this. Again, I think there are two things John is bringing out in this reading.

First, Jesus is talking about our eating His flesh and drinking his blood. Let’s see if we can get a very general understanding of what this might mean. The flesh of Jesus is made complete in our understanding of Jesus as fully human. This may get a little complicated, but Jesus is man, God himself put on flesh and became like us, He became a man. If we look to 1 John 4:2,3, we see, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus (has come in the flesh) is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.”

John insists that we need to understand the full humanity of Jesus, that Jesus was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Why is this important to us today? Because when you’re discouraged, and tired, and in despair, when you’re beaten to you knees and at the end of your rope, remember that Jesus took life upon himself. He’s been here, He’s experienced life. And He suffered more than any of us. He certainly relates to your struggling. The Greek Orthodox Church believes that Christ deified our flesh by taking it on Himself, by becoming like us, we became more like him. So in a very general sense, you can argue that when Jesus speaks of our eating his flesh, it’s a way of getting us to understand that He is flesh and blood, just like we are. 

To eat of his body in this way is to take him in, make a part of us, take Him within us. Let me use an illustration. I have this book in my library. Before I read it, it may have been a wonderful book, but as long as it stays on the bookshelf, it’s external to me, it’s not a part of me. But after I read it, it becomes a part of me. I can begin to understand what the characters did and why they did it. I lived a part of their life with them, and in a sense, they became a part of me. 

Jesus wants to be a part of us, he wants us to internalize him, take Him in, make his life a part of our life. That’s what’s he’s saying here. As long as he remains a figure in a book, he’s external to us, he’s not a part of us. But when we allow Him to enter into us, and we feed upon the life and strength that Christ gives to us, then and only then can we fully understand Him. Then and only then can He change us into his image. Can He bring the transformation he offers.

The other thing that I think we need to walk away with in this reading deals with the Lord’s Supper. And this is probably the obvious one. I’ve already mentioned that Jesus speaks these words long before he begins to predict his death, long before he eats of the Passover meal that last time with his disciples, and long before he institutes the symbolism of the bread and cup that we remember when we partake in the communion. 

But perhaps Jesus is looking forward to that day. He knows what He is gong to do, and he is telling us here that if you want life, you must come and sit at the table, you must break the bread together and drink of the cup together. Perhaps, just hours before His arrest, when he institutes the Lord’s Supper, He is giving us a way to do what he told us to do so long ago, what we read in our reading this morning.

If we can turn to Matthew 26, we see His instituting the Lord’s Supper. He is eating His final meal with his disciples, a Passover meal, and we read in verse 26, “While they were eating, Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave some to his disciples, saying, ‘Take eat; this is my body.’” And in verse 27, “Then they took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’”

In a few minutes, we’re going to come to the table, and we will symbolically share in the body and blood of Jesus. And what makes today so special is that Christians all over the world are doing the same thing, this is World Communion Sunday. In our partaking of the bread and cup this morning, we are becoming united with brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world. People who share a common faith, are also sharing a common meal – remembering Jesus Christ; his life, his death, his sacrifice on our behalf, and his resurrection into eternal life.