51 I am the Bread - living Bread! - who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live - and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self." 52 At this, the Jews started fighting among themselves: "How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?" 53 But Jesus didn't give an inch. "Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. 54 The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. 55 My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. 57 In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. 58 This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always."
This is a troublesome text. As one theologian said of it -
“The language in this text is raw and probably ought to shock our sensibilities.”
What ever we do with these words, we dare not take them literal - for then we will miss the point of what Jesus is saying - as is often the case when the Bible is take literally. We end up with a distorted, disconnected message which leads to distorted and disconnected living.
So what is it Jesus is trying to say to us today?
Robert Kyser, a Biblical scholar of today makes a good point as to what Jesus might be getting at here, in his book “Preaching John”. He suggests that Jesus is telling the hearers that they literally need to take Jesus into themselves, make him “part of their essence”
Too which another theologian, adds: “No arm’s-length relationship here, no safe distance between us. As (those) who long for the abundant life, we have no other way to such a life except by taking Jesus in, having him become so intermingled with our own being that we cannot separate one from the other. “ Adele Resmer
Then we will no longer be able to live indifferent to the urging of the spirit to place faith, hope, and love at the center of our living and let nothing push in aside.
Faith is “a power and passion in authority
among the powers and passions of life”
P.T. Forsythe,
Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, help me to be passionate about faith and life, empowered by your love to do good no matter what.”
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