Eating and Drinking Life

We are on week four of the sixth chapter of John.
Remember,
we began this journey 
on the side of the lake,
where 5000 were fed by five loaves and two fish.
And then Jesus and the disciples went across the lake
to the Synagogue in Capernaum.
Jesus walked part of the way across the water.
And then,
after the synagogue service
Jesus and the crowds that followed him
began to have a Torah discussion
about the manna.
And Jesus said to them,
I AM the bread of life.

And now,
we are coming to the climax of this discussion.
And if you read Greek,
a number of threads in the teaching of Jesus,
threads in the New Testament,
and threads in our practical experience as Christians
all come together.
We are back to signs,
and this massive conceptual art piece
that we call the Incarnation,
coming into sharp focus.

The purpose of all this 
is so that Jesus, 
who has seen the Father,
can reveal the Father to us.

Jesus is the Bread of Life.
This is all about life.
This passage is one of those places where the Greek 
not only gives insight,
it makes a difference.
Because Jesus chooses his words carefully,
to make a point.

In verse 51 Jesus says:
I am the bread,
that is living
that is coming down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
And this bread
is my flesh
and I give my flesh for the life of the world.

Here is a bit of context John would have understood,
and Jewish readers would have also understood.
Jesus is teaching this in the synagogue.
If you were in the ancient world,
you would have understood
that if you went to a temple to sacrifice,
the purpose of the sacrifice was not to placate
or pay off a god.
The purpose was to draw close and commune with God.
Sacrifices were not sin taxes that were burnt up.
They were food you cooked and ate in the presence of God.
This is highlighted in the Amidah,
the Jewish prayer book.
There is one story that is repeated in every prayer service
in the Jewish prayer book.
It is the story of Abraham offering Isaac.

The word sacrifice
in Hebrew
means to come close to God.

If you understand what a sacrifice really was,
a way to get close and experience a god,
suddenly things start to click.

Abraham was asked by God
to bring his Son as a sacrifice.
Abraham understood immediately
that God was asking him to eat his son.
And the Canaanites practiced human sacrifice,
so this idea would not have been foreign.

So,
when Abraham went up the mountain with Isaac,
he believed that he was going to kill and eat his miracle,
and that in doing this He was going to get something far greater
in return,
because God 
is going to come close.
So Abraham wasn't choosing to kill his son,
He was choosing to get close to God.
He understood that the killing was the price to get close.
In this death there would be some kind of life.

If you think a sacrifice is a payment for sin,
this all gets weird,
because Abraham Isaac isn't atoning for anything.
This is one of those places where the “grid” doesn't work.
And of course,
when they get to the mountain
God provides a Lamb.
And it says that Abraham believed God.

Abraham chose closeness to God
over his child of promise,
and believed that getting close to God
would somehow fulfill the promise in another way.

So fast forward to the synagogue in Capernaum.
They have heard just heard this story,
in the context of the synagogue service,
and they understand what a sacrifice is about.
And Jesus says
if you want to have eternal life,
you have to eat my flesh,
and drink my blood.
And my flesh and blood are food for the world.
I am the sacrifice.

And they begin to argue.

"What? Are you saying that we are going to have to eat you
just like Abraham was asked to eat Isaac?"
They imagined Jesus on the altar at the temple,
and a bunch of his cannibalistic followers in a frenzy around him.

And then Jesus 
removes all doubt.
He changes the words
for eating and drinking.
He uses a form of the word 
"Trago" for eating.
Literally chewing and devouring
like a lion in the coliseum.
The word for drinking is the word
for drunkenness and partying.
He is saying you have to devour me like an animal
and guzzle my blood
or you won't have life.

This is not a metaphor for faith in Christ.
Jesus is saying you have to really eat and drink.
He takes away all other possibilities.

Jesus says that if someone eats his flesh
and drinks his blood,
just like a vulture or a lion,
he will have life eternal
and God will raise him up in the last day.
You will consume the seed of eternity.
And the life of Jesus in you will activate a resurrection.

In the Greek it says
“For my flesh TRUE is food,
and my blood TRUE is drink.”
This is the real food,
the eternal food.

And then Jesus uses a word
that appears in John 15,
John 16, and John 17.

If you eat my flesh
you will abide in me.
You will live in me.
If you live in me
and my words live in you,
you can ask anything in my name
and I will do it.
Eating his flesh and drinking his blood
will give you a place to live in him.

So what is going on?
In the ancient world,
People went and sacrificed to a god
and then entered into communion 
or deep fellowship
with that God.

Recent events have put Bacchus on people's minds.
If you went to the temple of Bacchus
you gorged yourself on food,
got drunk on drugged wine
and had an orgy,
and then the spirit of Bacchus entered into the revelers.
And they had a demonic encounter.

Jesus is saying,
instead of offering something else
I am offering myself.
And my body,
my flesh is the food,
and my blood is the drink,
and if you eat and drink of me,
then you will be close and live in me.
More than close
you are in him.
So instead of a lamb,
Jesus is the lamb.
And Jesus said earlier in the chapter,
he is God.
He is the son that Isaac prefigured.
He is the offering.
God is the offering,
and God is going to feed us.
We are going to eat God.
And God is going to offer his body and blood
for us to receive.
And we will be more than close,
we will live in him.
And if we live in him
we will live forever,
Because all this eating and drinking is the source of real life.

And once you connect these dots,
the story of Abraham and Isaac makes more sense.
The petition in the Lord's Prayer "give us our super-substantial bread"
makes more sense.
Abiding in him makes more sense.
It's not a mental exercise,
it is a practical act.
If you receive this bread
you live in him.
Simple.
Not easy,
because it involved the cross,
but it is simple.

When we offer this bread
and this wine
we not only recall the past,
we reconnect to him right now.
We enter into the life of God.
And eternal life of God 
comes into us in a mysterious and powerful way.

When I was the 
Assistant to the Dean of the Chapel
at Asbury, 
I heard one of these 
mysterious,
but simple and Biblical
stories.
During the Pre-Seminary orientation for new students,
we hosted a series of special chapels,
and the last one was always
a communion service.

That September, 
a man had come to seminary 
after having an encounter with God
through something called the Emmaus Walk.
It was an intense three day retreat
where he had a clear encounter with Jesus,
and he believed he had received a call to the ministry.
And he decided to come to seminary.

His wife did not.

Even so, 
they sold their home,
quit their jobs,
and moved to Kentucky,
because 
sometimes you do things you don’t agree with,
because you love someone.
And this woman loved her husband.

So during the last chapel of the 
Pre-Seminary Orientation
this couple sat up in the balcony.
The wife of the new student
wasn’t so sure about this,
and was looking the place over.
And it came time to come forward 
and receive
the Bread and Cup,
and this couple made their way down from the balcony,
and up the central aisle of the chapel.

As they made the slow way forward,
the woman looked up,
and she didn’t see the 
Dean of the Chapel,
or anyone else.
She looked up and she saw Jesus.

And Jesus was breaking pieces 
of Himself off his own body,
and placing those broken pieces
into the hand of each person who came forward
to receive.

And she began to weep,
because although she was a Methodist,
she was not a Christian,
and she quietly resented 
what her husband had decided to do.

When she took the bread
from the hand of Jesus,
she received His own Body,
and also received eternal life.

The story of her life,
and her marriage,
all changed that day 
at Asbury.

She knew Jesus in the breaking of the bread.
She was a woman
who was blind,
but now can see.
How she saw
I do not know.

Quite a story.
The Real Presence of Jesus
in the Bread and the Wine is True Food.
It is the source of Life.
Life.
It is all about life.
We receive his life
when we eat of his flesh and blood.

And of course
at the end of the story,
most of the crowd left him.
They no longer were with him.
He couldn't be God,
and he couldn't give them his flesh,
and they certainly were not going to become cannibals to follow him.

And Jesus turned to Peter and said
"Will you leave me too?”
And Peter said,
Lord,
to whom shall we go?
Only you have the words of eternal life.

The Life of God
is not dependent on you knowing things
or understanding concepts.
The life of God is dependent on you
eating and drinking with him
and in eating and drinking with him
we are promised
we are eating and drinking him
by the power of the Word and Holy Spirit.
This is life.
This is the source of life.

I am the Bread of Life,
if anyone eats this bread they will live for ever
and I will raise them up on the last day.