Continuing with last week’s passage, Jesus instructed the crowd that they must eat his Flesh and drink his Blood if they want to share in eternal life. The movement from bread – equated with the ancient manna – to the Flesh and Blood of Jesus was done in a seamless and powerful way by Jesus. While the crowd was open to the promise of eternal life and the possibility of having the bread of eternal life, the idea that it would be Jesus’ Body and Blood was something the crowd deemed abhorrent.
Their first response is disbelief. The very idea of consuming human flesh was unthinkable in the Jewish world. They were even forbidden by the law to consume the blood or to have even any remnant of blood in the meat that they ate. Hence, Jesus fellow Jews are now beginning to feel a sense of outrage and disgust. The language of this section of Chapter 6 gets even more graphic.
Although the phrase “eat my flesh” is used in our translations, the Greek renders the expression “to gnaw.” Eating presents a civil image while gnawing is the action of a ravenous carnivorous animal. Therefore, Jesus uses a much more graphic image, one designed perhaps to further shock his listeners in responding to his teaching. He then instructs them to drink his Blood. If they desire the life he is offering, this is the absolute requirement.
The Eucharistic overtones of this section of the chapter are very clear and demanding. The argument to understand the totality of his teaching is necessarily connected to the incarnational theology referenced in last week’s article for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time.
The Eucharist is possible because of the Incarnation. Jesus is a physical person, he has flesh and blood. This same flesh and blood will be poured out onto the world – onto the very ground of the created world – in the moment of his Death on the Cross. A lance will pierce his side unleashing blood and water from his side. Jesus humanity is certain. What the reader knows – what the believing community also knows – is what the crowd does not know. This flesh and blood Jesus is also the Incarnation of the LOGOS – the Word of God.
In order to understand either the Incarnation or the Eucharist, it is essential to understand the other. While they are separate realities, John presents them as consequential of each other. The Incarnation makes sense as it is expressed in the Eucharist – the Bread that has come down from heaven is the very Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is possible only because of the Incarnation. If Jesus were not real flesh and blood then the Eucharist could not also be his flesh and blood.
It is therefore essential that we understand the Eucharist in this light. Those who would read this chapter absent its Eucharistic overtones miss the point of John’s intentional Incarnational theology.
As the Israelites needed the manna to survive the desert and enter the Promised Land, we need the Eucharist – the bread come down from heaven – in order to enter the Promised Land too.
This is a difficult teaching for many to understand. It is easier to think of the Eucharist in more symbolic and signifying terms. Yet, Jesus eschews any use of symbolism here. The context and meaning of what Jesus says to this crowd is direct and simple: “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” The connection between eating his flesh and blood and eternal life is essential.
The crowd definitely understands what Jesus is saying. We have one more section of this chapter to consider before we see how the crowd responds to what they understand.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.