Perspective: You Want Us to Eat and Drink What?!

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You Want Us to Eat and Drink What?!

Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

John 6:53 (NRSV)

Eat this bread
Drink this cup
Come to Him and never be hungry

From "Eat This Bread" by the Taizé Community

Jesus says a number of strange things in the Gospels, but what is probably the strangest thing He ever says is found in the Gospel of John.

One day, Jesus miraculously feeds a massive crowd.  He and the Disciples start with only five loaves of bread and a couple of fish and somehow manage to feed thousands of people.  The people in the crowd are reminded of the bread their ancestors were miraculously fed in the wilderness after they were delivered from slavery in Egypt, so they begin to think that Jesus might be the long-awaited Messiah who will liberate them from their oppression at the hands of the Roman Empire.  They want make Him king immediately, so He quickly has to make Himself scarce.¹

The next day, when the crowd catches up with Jesus, He says to them, "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that the Son of Man will give you."²  He begins to speak of "the bread of God" that "comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."  When the crowd demands that Jesus give them this bread, He says to them, "I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."³

To compare oneself to bread is strange, but it pales in comparison to what Jesus says next.

Jesus says to the crowd, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the live of the world is my flesh."⁴  He then goes on to say,
Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.⁵

I hope that it is painfully obvious to you, dear reader, that Jesus is not encouraging people to engage in cannibalism.  Jesus will indeed be killed in the Gospel story, but nobody will eat His remains.  Jesus is speaking metaphorically, but His words are still bizarre and even disturbing.  What exactly does He mean when He invites people to eat His flesh and drink His blood?

Biblical scholar N.T. Wright connects Jesus' strange words to a particular story about Jesus' ancestor David, who was a leader in Israel's military before he became king.  David and his soldiers were hunkered down in a cave, while his hometown of Bethlehem was under enemy occupation.  Longing for simpler days, he cried out, "O that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate!"  Three of his bravest soldiers heard his cry, snuck into Bethlehem, drew some water from the well of which he spoke, and brought it back to him.⁶

David couldn't bring himself to drink the water his soldiers risked their lives to bring him.  In his eyes, drinking this water would be tantamount to drinking his solders' blood, so he poured the water out to God as a libation or drink offering.⁷

Wright suggests that, when Jesus invites His audience to eat His flesh and drink His blood, He is basically calling His audience to do what David refused to do.  Jesus knows that He is going to give His life for the sake of the world, and He knows that His sacrifice will result in new life to all who believe in Him.⁸  His body will be broken like bread, and his blood will be poured out like wine.  Jesus wants His followers to receive His gift and benefit from it.

Jesus loses a lot of His followers because of what He says.⁹  Perhaps they are disturbed by the sheer strangeness of His words, or maybe His words challenge their expectations of the Messiah.¹⁰

In the other three Gospels, we read that, during the evening before Jesus is arrested and put on trial, while He is enjoying one last supper with the Disciples, He takes some bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them saying, "Take, eat; this is my body."  He then takes a cup of wine, gives thanks for it, and passes it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."¹¹  Churches around the world regularly reenact this story in the sacrament known as Holy Communion.

Receiving Holy Communion is one way in which we may ritually receive Jesus' gift and benefit from it.  Countless Christians have found this sacrament to be life-giving and transformative.  It is commonly said that we are what we eat.  We pray that the bread and wine of Holy Communion become the body and blood of Christ and then consume the bread and the wine in the hopes that we become more like Him.  Furthermore, it is the broken body of Christ, which is represented by broken bread, that brings a broken humanity back together at a common table.


Notes:

1. John 6:1-15
2. John 6:25-28 (NRSV)
3. John 6:33-35 (NRSV)
4. John 6:51 (NRSV)
5. John 6:53-56 (NRSV)
6. 2 Samuel 23:13-16 (NRSV)
7. 2 Samuel 23:16-17
8. N.T. Wright.  John for Everyone, Part 1.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 85
9. John 6:66
10. Wright pp. 88-89
11. Matthew 26:26-29 (NRSV) (See also Mark 14:22-25 and Luke 22:17-20.)

The photograph of the Communion elements was taken by John Snyder (no relation) and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.