Living Stones – Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Food indeed?
John 6:55
For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.
Jesus answers the murmuring Jews with a speech that is probably the most difficult passage in the new testament for us to wrap our minds around. Eating flesh and drinking blood makes most modern minds a bit squeamish. And, as we shall see later in this sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, the people who heard it first were just as squeamish about it.
Jesus here foreshadows the communion, or the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist as it is sometimes called, which itself has had periods of time, in the first and second centuries, where the reference to the body and blood had caused the early Christians to be accused of Cannibalism in their rituals.
Of course, Jesus was still speaking of things spiritual, the offence or the revulsion comes for thinking things natural and literal. In foreshadowing the communion, He was rooting the concept in something which should have been very familiar to the Jews, especially the Jewish leaders and teachers.
The Jews at the time were very familiar with the sacrificial system that was the center piece of their worship rituals. In the practice of the sacrifice, the priest did not burn the entire sacrifice on the altar. Rather, part of the animal was burned, a part was given to the priest for him and his family, and a part was given to the worshiper to make a meal for him and his family and friends. Jesus was presenting himself as a sacrifice and was speaking in familiar sacrificial terms.
The idea in verse 54 should have also been very familiar to the Jewish mind, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” Jesus was saying that eternal life is in the blood of God’s ultimate sacrifice. You know that the life of the creature is in the blood, now wrap you minds around the fact that eternal life is in the blood of the Sacrifice come down from heaven.
In Jewish teaching, life was in the blood. Genesis 9:4 says, “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” And in Deuteronomy 15:23 Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it on the ground like water. Which is why in the letter to the Hebrews it says in 9:22 ‘And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
Jesus was saying that we are now going beyond the sacrificial system with which they were familiar to one where, rather that there being constant sacrifice He was going to be the sacrifice once for all. “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day,” John 6:54.
Of course, as we established, Jesus was speaking of spiritual things not natural. We know that He was certainly speaking figuratively because He had already established that eternal life comes through believing. In verse 35, And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” This is also seen in verses 29, 40 and 47.
He was differentiating for them, still, the difference between mana in the wilderness and the bread of life. In verse 49, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” Then in verse 58, ‘This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.” Food indeed!
Today we tend to think of our faith in very palatable terms, and in constructs that are socially and culturally acceptable. Political correctness and cultural acceptability seem to have more influence on Christian thought, sometimes, than Christianity has on the culture. However, the Cross and the Sacrifice will always be counter culture. It was counter culture when Jesus spoke to the Jews in that Synagogue in Capernaum and it still is today. The Apostle Paul, writing in a totally different context in Galatians 5, asked if the offence of the cross [has] ceased.
Think on these things:
- Does this passage about eating flesh and drinking blood make you a bit squeamish?
- Would you be comfortable explaining this passage to someone who is not familiar with the scriptures?
- The Jews had their own sacrificial system which could be used as a reference to explain what Jesus was talking about, can you think of anything to compare it with today?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that God would help us to identify the opportunities, and find the courage, to share the Gospel with those who are desperate for life even when the claims we make about Christ seem to be outrageous.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex