Offensive

John 6:53 Jesus said to the, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Different cultures have different things that are offensive to them. In some places, like Germany,  loud talking is offensive. But in Italy loud talking is just talking! In Korea, eating silk worm larvae is healthy, while eating any kind of bug in the USA is offensive. Different cultures, different offenses.

And the more cultures you become aware of, the more those areas in your own culture become evident. The foods we eat and won’t eat vary across cultures. The way we dress. Our social events, special occasions, religious ceremonies, living arrangements, and taboos, all change with culture.

For ancient Jewish people, the most offensive things someone could do is eat human flesh and drink blood. If Jesus is trying to be accepted by the religious leaders and the population at large, there is nothing more offensive that what he suggests. So why does He put this forth as an entrance test to life?

Jesus recognizes that there are two groups of people in the world. There are those who are open to His message and those that are closed to it. If someone is closed to the message, then they will become harder and more stubbornly reject Jesus’ teaching. Their heart’s condition determines how they hear Jesus message.

If someone is open to Jesus message, then the same statements that makes others hard softens them. They become curious and seek out further answers and clarification. Their response is to pull in closer to Jesus.

And this is exactly what happens when Jesus speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Those who are closed to His message immediately reject what Jesus is saying and they stop listening with an open heart and mind. So they miss the clarification of meaning that happens in a few verses.

Jesus begins (V55) the clarification by making His flesh and blood the central issue in life, the one thing that is needed to sustain life. The flesh and blood are real food and drink. So the curious mind begins to wonder, “What does Jesus mean?” What kind of food are we talking about? I know what food and drink are, so what does Jesus mean by eating and drinking?

Jesus then says (V56) that those who do eat and drink then have a living connect to Him and He with them. This eating and drinking becomes the entryway into a relationship with Jesus. So it can’t be a physical eating and drinking. Jesus must be meaning something else. How do relationships start and continue?

Then Jesus connects the life that He has with the Father with the life that we can have with Him. Certainly Jesus didn’t eat the Father! So the eating and drinking can’t be physical. He must be speaking of something different.

I think this rules out communion as the fulfillment of these verses. This sin’t something physical. This is about willingness to be connected to Jesus no mater the cost. This sis about a change of heart that result in a radically different kind of life, one where Jesus’ presence is always acknowledge and invited.

So are you eating and drinking Jesus today?