❖ Video
❖ Audio (Message)
Living by “Eating” the Death of Jesus
(John 6:41-59)
Mari Ikeda
Today we continue with the Gospel of John, and today we will read 6:41-59. This is a passage that deals with the theme of “Jesus is the Bread of Life” through three times, last time, today, and next time. Today’s passage is the heart of the series. The main part is from verse 48 onward, but before that, in verses 41-47, the important things that we confirmed last time are discussed in more detail. Let’s read from verses 41-47.
A. Faith is something God gives us (41-47)
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” 43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
In the previous reading, Jesus spoke about how we have faith not by our own strength but by God’s work, and he elaborates on this further here.
The doubts and disbelief that the Jews had about Jesus here are common to all of us. No one hears one person say that he came down from heaven and immediately believes it. The idea that a historical figure, Jesus Christ, is a heavenly being, equal to God, is so insane that it is no wonder we do not immediately accept it.
That’s why Jesus himself says in v.44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” None of us can have faith in Jesus, unless God works in us.
How does God, whom we cannot see or hear, work in us? It is by the Holy Spirit. Although there is no reference to the Holy Spirit in today’s passage, there is no one who can teach us about God except God’s Spirit. When the Holy Spirit works in us, we come to know God. This is what Jesus said is written in the Prophets.
(Jeremiah 31:34) No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD.
However, being led by the Holy Spirit to know God does not mean that we let go of our reason and uncritically accept without reason what seems insane to us. It is important to consider for ourselves whether we can determine that it is true that one historical person, Jesus, is the very God who created this world. The Holy Spirit works in that thinking process. And it is the work of the Holy Spirit, not our good judgment or our ability to think, that enables us to believe.
Now let’s get to today’s main part, verses 48 and beyond. First, verses 48-51.
B. Jesus is the bread of life
1. Bread given only once (48-51)
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Jesus already said in verse 35, “I am the Bread of Life,” and he repeats it again here. The bread of life that God has given us is Jesus himself.
What I would like to focus on in the passage I just read are the verbs “come down from heaven” and “eat.” Although neither the Japanese nor the English translation conveys the nuance of the original language, in the original language, these verbs refer to a once-and-for-all action. In other words, the bread, Jesus, came down from heaven only once, meaning that we only need to eat that bread once to be able to live eternally. This may be a little different from our sense, for we may decide to believe once, but are shaken again and again, and each time we decide that we will still believe. But the emphasis here is that the event of Jesus coming down from heaven and becoming the Bread of Life happened only once in history. And that the basis of our salvation depends on a single point: whether or not we accept that event.
And here is the most important part, Jesus did not just come into the world, he became flesh for us to eat. Let’s move on to v. 52-59.
2. What it means to eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His blood (52-59)
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 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. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 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. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Jesus clearly teaches here, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood,” which, if taken literally, means “Be cannibals,” so it is not surprising that people here would be creeped out and surprised. Moreover, the Jews of that time must have felt another sense of disgust. For in the Old Testament, the blood of a living creature symbolizes life, and it is against the law to drink the blood of any animal. Therefore, to the Jews of that time, Jesus’ words were nothing but insane and blasphemous.
So what was Jesus’ true intention when he taught, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood”? We can say, first of all, that while the word used in the communion is “the body of Jesus,” Jesus uses a more graphic term, “my flesh.” Another is that in the Old Testament blood means not only life, but also violent death. Taken together, what Jesus meant here is His violent death accompanied by physical suffering.
There is one more word here that I would like to focus on. It is the verb “eat.” In the original language, “eat” up to verse 53 and “eat” from verse 54 onward are two different verbs. “Eat” up to verse 53, (esthio) is the verb used for “consume,” “take” nutrition, or “devour,” and it is by far the most commonly used in the Bible. On the other hand, “eat” from verse 54 onward (trogo) is rarely used elsewhere in the Bible. It can also be translated as “chew,” and is used to describe the sound of eating, such as munching or crunching. It can also be used to describe a habit, such as “feed on,” like “feed on animals” or “feed on grass.” I believe that the translation “feed on” in verses 57 and 58 of the English NIV is conscious of this.
All of this shows that when Jesus said, “Eat my flesh,” He meant that we are to taste His death daily, literally and vividly.
C. What is means to live by eating the death of Jesus
Let me conclude by summarizing. What exactly does it mean to experience the suffering and death of Jesus daily and vividly? It means, on the one hand, to realize that Jesus suffered and died for us and, on the other hand, to realize that He suffers with us.
First, regarding Jesus dying for us, we must first know that every one of us is a selfish, self-centered sinner. All people, myself included, are so convinced that we are right that we do not recognize our own mistakes and do not realize that we are hurting, disrespecting and excluding others. We are all “forgiven sinners.” Without Jesus giving His life to forgive us of our sins, we would literally remain “irredeemable sinners.” We must humbly accept how shameful and miserable we are in our daily lives. Otherwise, we are not “eating” Jesus realistically. But at the same time, we are also given the grace to be amazed and rejoice in the greatness of Jesus’ forgiveness and love. That is the greatest privilege of those who constantly rely on Jesus as their bread for life. We might say that this is literally what it means to chew on Jesus’ love.
On the other hand, as for Jesus suffering with us, we need to accept our suffering as His suffering. Just as Jesus endured physical pain on the cross, we may have to suffer from illness and disability. And just as Jesus was caught for a crime he did not commit, abandoned by all his disciples, and suffered alone on the cross, we too may suffer alone when we are unreasonably hurt by others. And also, when we feel like there is nothing we can do about the absurdity and injustice of this world, we should not forget that Jesus also faced the same reality. And God never left us to suffer or left us indifferent, but came to this world as Jesus to teach us that the painful reality that surrounds us is never what He wanted. Jesus died on the cross, but it was not His final end, for He was resurrected. So we can see Jesus’ suffering and the hope of his resurrection in the suffering of individuals and in the suffering of society as a whole. And with that, suffering is gradually transformed into hope. We can believe that even though we have only sorrow and anxiety, there is hope that only God can see. And even if we do not have the strength to believe in hope, we can surrender our weakness to God. That is our daily struggle, to experience Jesus’ suffering as our own.
I’d like to close by reading Jesus’ words one last time, verse 56.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
Let us walk by the Holy Spirit’s help so that we can know realistically in our daily lives that Jesus is in us and that we are in him.
(Prayer) Lord Jesus, help us in our weakness. Show us that You are with us in our time of distress. Help us to believe that there is a hope even if we cannot see. Make us humble. Lead us to accept our mistakes and our smallness without fear, so that You can transform us. Let us remember that You love us all and this world. Teach us, day by day, what it means that You came down into this world and gave Your life for us. We thank you, Lord Jesus, and we pray in your name. Amen.
Summary
Jesus said, “Unless you eat (my) flesh and drink (my) blood, you have no life in you.” Jesus’ flesh and blood refer to His suffering and death on the cross. To eat and drink them means to rely on Jesus’ suffering and death as one’s strength to live. It is to know that in our sufferings Jesus suffers with us and died for us, and to find hope in that. Suffering does not immediately turn into hope. We struggle to reach hope in our specific daily struggles. That is why Jesus deliberately used graphic expressions.
For Discussion
- What do you think about the fact that God is the one who suffers with us more than removing our suffering?
- What can we do when we cannot find hope?