Difficult Words of Jesus
My blog-o-friend TS wrote that he was reading his Bible—the sixth chapter of John--on the bus recently when he began to question “whether Jesus actually spoke the exact words quoted in John or not.” He says, “This posed a problem, because I believe any real Christian has to believe in the inerrancy of scripture simply because it can't be inspired if it's not accurate. And if it's not inspired, then why are you believing it?”
Through Jesus, God was trying to establish a “new covenant”—a new way of understanding the people-God relationship—a new way of relating. He wants us to be totally committed to him, to be filled with delight in him, to be open to all the riches of his love. He offers a relationship grounded in personal, passionate oneness with him; in fact, he longs for such a relationship with us. We long for it, too, whether we realize it or not, and we have a large, empty space that can be filled only by God.
In the Bible are many images of physical closeness. These illustrate, I believe, how close we can be to God. After I had read these things about 98 times, prayed a lot, and puzzled until my puzzler was sore, I realized that God was trying to show people through these images--especially in images of eating and drinking—how complete oneness with him can be.
In Ezekiel 3, Ezekiel had a vision in which God told him to eat a scroll. He did, and it tasted “as sweet as honey,” and it filled his stomach, so that then, he could go out and talk to the people about God.
The Lord’s Supper is a time of eating the bread (Christ’s body broken for you) and drinking the wine (his blood shed for you). It's a time when we remember him and open our hearts to him.
Jesus offered a Samaritan woman living water in John 4:8-26 . We can find many other “living water” references.
In the part TS was reading, John 6, Jesus said he is the living bread—the bread that gives eternal life. He said, “I am the bread of life. . . . if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Then he said, “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” Some people were horrified because they thought he was talking about cannibalism.
I don’t think that is what he meant at all.
If you think about it, when you eat something, it becomes so much part of you that you can no longer separate it from yourself—it nourishes you, gives you strength, keeps you alive. In a very real sense, what you eat and drink creates you, giving you life. In a physical way, your body cannot live without food and drink. In a spiritual way, you cannot live without “eating” the bread of life—Jesus Christ—taking him into yourself completely so that he is part of you.
“Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me” (John 6:57).
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