Blood and Bread

John 6:51-58

Jesus said, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."

When I was a young girl, there was an article in my take-home paper from church that changed my life. It explained how to take Bible stories and, using your five senses, imagine that you were really there  with Jesus (or Jonah or whoever) hearing the words, seeing the action, and gaining a particular, personal blessing. The author said to pray first for the Holy Spirit to lead you into whatever truth He wanted you to have.

There is also a 19th-century author in my denomination, Ellen White, who said pretty much the same thing. She said we should take Bible stories (especially the life of Christ) "point by point and let the imagination grasp each scene" [Desire of Ages, p. 362] and to "in imagination go back to [those] scene[s]" and "enter into the thoughts and feelings that filled their hearts." [Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, p. 1]. I began then to take this counsel, and it revolutionized my prayer life and still does.

Many stories are easy to do this with. I can well imagine what it would feel like to be in a small boat when a storm takes over, or to be a small boy who discovers that Jesus needs his lunch.

Some are not so easy. Mrs. White mentions, for instance, that we should especially imagine "the closing scenes" of Jesus' life. This is incredibly painful. It's far more meaningful to try to "be there" than to simply read about and discuss the theological implications of whatever story is under discussion.

This story, the watershed of Jesus' ministry that we were looking forward to a couple of weeks ago, is one of the difficult ones. Not for such painful reasons, but because we can't help looking at it through layers of 2,000 years of commentary and communion customs. Those who heard these shocking words the first time did not have that luxury. I challenge us to reread, carefully, His speech, reproduced above, as if we were there, and hearing it for the first time.

What do you really think you would have thought then?
What questions would you have had for Jesus?

I hope none of us would have turned away. I hope we would have said, with Peter, "Where else would we go?"

We may not get it, Lord, but we aren't leaving!
Amen.