John 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

This is the hard Jesus. This is the Jesus that many refuse to acknowledge. This is the Jesus that sets Himself as the line of demarcation between salvation and damnation. This is not the nice, tolerant, moral teacher who loves everyone. This is the Jesus who says that He is the one we must believe in; the one we must follow; the one whose flesh we must eat. Follow Jesus and be saved. Reject Jesus and be damned.

Many don’t like this Jesus. It gets worse. Ultimately, His words in this sixth chapter of John will cause many who had been following Him to turn away and go back home, disappointed by the Jesus who insists that no one can be saved except through Him, and that to be saved we must eat His body and drink His blood.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Huh? This is crazy! The Jews were expecting another miracle of bread from heaven as a sign that the Messiah had come. But this is too much. Jesus says that He is that bread that has come down from heaven. How can a man be bread? Then He says that whoever eats this bread will live forever. What does that mean? Few Jews believed in life after death (and it’s still a debate within Judaism whether or not there is life after death). So, does Jesus mean we will live forever down here on earth? What does living forever even mean? Then, he caps the whole thing off by saying that this bread is His flesh! His flesh? Are we supposed to eat Jesus? That simply can’t be. We’re not cannibals! Are we supposed to kill Him and eat His flesh? This is simply too much! What is Jesus talking about?

Of course we know now. The Gospel According to John does not have a Last Supper scene where Jesus tells the disciples to “Take and eat, this is my body,” and “Take and drink, this is my blood.” Instead, John’s Gospel has Jesus washing the disciples’ feet as a symbol of the mission He is giving them. They are to serve as He serves. Here in the sixth chapter is John’s version, if you will, of Jesus’ “This is my body, … This is my blood” discourse. Here Jesus announces that He is the bread of life, come down from heaven, and that we are to eat His body and drink His blood for eternal life. We can’t soft soap these words. We can’t water them down. They are just as controversial today as they were when the Jews first heard them. If we are to have eternal life, we must eat His flesh, and drink His blood. How are we to do that?

Jesus has given us the Eucharist as His body and blood. There is no question that the early Church took Jesus quite literally when He told them to eat His body and drink His blood. St. Paul made it clear: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16). Also, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27). And St. Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century wrote: “This food is called among us Eucharistia, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” (First Apology, 66).

So, there you have it. Jesus is the bread come down from heaven. This bread is His flesh. We are to eat this bread unto eternal life. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.