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October 01, 2006
Dining on Jesus
Exodus 16: 4-8/John 6: 51-60, 66
October 1st, 2006
Today all over the world Christians are taking the Lord’s Supper. It’s as though we’re all gathered around one great table as one loaf and a single cup are passed around to us all. At first there were twelve men, one of whom would go out and betray Jesus. Now there are many of us who have come to Jesus’ table, at His invitation.
When the first disciples took the Last Supper with Jesus they thought it was just another Passover. It seems it was the third Passover they’d had with Jesus. Always be-fore Jesus would say the words from Exodus that reminded the Jewish people of the way God delivered their ancestors from Egypt. But now He said something very different. He said, “This is my body broken for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” How totally unprecedented!
I wonder if any of them made any connection between Jesus’ words at this last Passover: “This is my body which is given for you,” and “this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood,” and what He said as He spoke in the syna-gogue at Capernaum some time before. This morning we read the shocking words Jesus said standing on the bema, the raised platform in that synagogue, ”Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you.” He didn’t say this in the privacy of a conversation with the twelve, but publicly, in the synagogue on the Sabbath apparently after reading from Deuteronomy or Exodus about the manna God supplied in the wilderness. I wonder if any of them made a connection between Jesus’ words at this last Passover and His earlier words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
John tells us, “the Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” It must be an understatement to say they “disputed” among themselves. Did anyone suggest, “Does this sound like cannibalism to you?” A few verses later we read that after this many of his disciples drew back no longer went about with Him.” No wonder.
The Apostle Paul tells us of the ways of idol-worshippers whose temples were their meat-markets. People ate meat that came from animals that were offered as sacri-fices and in doing so they had intimate participation with their gods as they ate their food. There was something about what Jesus said that smacked of this pagan practice, only worse. Because what Jesus said sounded oddly like cannibalism as well. No wonder many disciples left Him after He taught this. I would guess a lot of Christians are not aware this is in their Bibles.
I wonder if all of us here knew that Jesus said those stunning words. Are you tempted to think these words are a bit extreme, certainly more than you believe. This is part of the Bible we politely choose to ignore.
But there is something very basic to Christianity going on here about which the pagan world had some idea. Somehow the way true religion is to work is from deep in-side of us. We must eat for ourselves.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been gradually building to this point. As we’ve read from the Book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of John it’s as though God gradually put together the means of restoring fallen humanity. Restoring the human heart would take extreme measures. All this in John’s Gospel began with Jesus feeding the 5000 by the Sea of Galilee. He went on to speak of the manna God supplied to ancient Israel in the wilderness. He drew a parallel between that manna and Himself, that both came from heaven. But He was the true bread. The manna was not the true bread. Eat it and you get hungry a few hours later. Indeed, it didn’t last over night; it would get wormy and spoiled before morning. Jesus, by contrast, lasted forever and would satisfy forever. We read last week that Jesus said, “Come to me and you’ll not hunger; believe in me and you’ll not thirst.” He gradually came to the great truth announced in our reading this morning.
From the Old Testament we see how God began with one people, the ancient Is-raelites who were the means of teaching the whole human race. He urged them to re-member how He cared for them. There’s a lot of repetition of Israel’s history in the Old Testament. Why? Because repetition is the mother of memory. Remember! Remember!
Then God urged Israel to thank Him. Why? Because there is nothing like saying “thank you” to teach a person’s heart to be thankful. Take notice of all His all His bene-fits and you’ll be a thankful people. He urged them to keep the commandments. Why? Because they guided the people into the good way of life, pleasing to them and pleasing to their Creator. In all of this we see that God was trying to fill their thoughts with a new outlook on life. He was getting into their heads.
For the rest of the world life was a continuous competition for survival and su-premacy. All most people think about is getting ahead, or maybe just surviving. But Is-rael could let God be their warrior. He was the Lord of Hosts for them. He provided for them in the wilderness and He would provide for them in the Promised Land. All that was needed from them was to remember, to be grateful, to live by the good rules, so much better than selfish natural reflexes. Thus God tried to enter the thoughts of Israel.
But now we see Jesus taking this one step farther as He speaks of these things. Not only would God enter their minds and hearts, He must enter their bodies. Jesus said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” “Son of man” was a very particular way of pointing to Himself. He could have said sim-ply “my flesh,” but “Son of man” pointed emphatically at Himself. Why? Because this particular son of man was God incarnate. Great doctrine is hidden in these words. God must enter into their very bodies. You must eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink His blood.
I remind us of this knowing how shocking it is, how indiscreet even in our day. Few people nowadays have in mind a kind of Christianity that talks much of the blood of Christ, much less drinking it. We scarcely sing any more the hymns having to do with Jesus’ blood. Jesus intended this indiscretion because the thing He had in mind for us is indiscreet. Discretion, we say, is the better part of valor. Discretion knows when to say when. It looks out for what is best for a person. Discretion gets tossed to the winds if we’re really into the Jesus way.
Part of the difficulty we have in really doing up Christianity fully is that we are far too discrete. We want a reasonable approach to Christianity, convenient, one that fits in with normal life. We want a polite Christianity. We want nothing like the extremism that sometimes comes out of religions that have gone bananas.
Christian extremism in the past produced anchorites in the fourth century that thought that being a real Christian meant they should climb up on platforms high above the ground and spend their lives up there to separate themselves for God. These “pil-larites” certainly were indiscreet in their religion, but what a pointless indiscretion! Be-fore Martin Luther got sensible and got married, snuggling up to his beloved Katherine von Bora he spent nights lying alone on a cold floor in his monastic cell in Erfurt. His back some times bled from his self-whipping as he tried to crush his body so that his spirit could soar. Christianity like other religions has produced many kinds of silly or destructive fanaticism.
We witness how the world is in turmoil today from the minority of extremists who are eager to blow their own bodies up if they can kill other people too that they think their God hates. And so young men and young women, even pregnant mothers strap explosives to their bodies and detonate them for the sake of God. No wonder we fear extremism. Let our Christianity be sensible!
And then we read these words of Jesus that surely should be left out of the Bible. “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in me.”
We have cleaned this up a bit as we remember the Last Supper without those pre-vious words ringing in our ears. We Protestants focus on the symbolic nature of the bread and wine, not trying to define too closely what is actually going on. Protestants take issue with the Catholics for seeing too much connection between what Jesus taught in John 6 and what is happening at Communion. They teach “transubstantiation,” which means that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus when the priest says, “This is my body” at the Mass.
Though I don’t think Jesus intended us to try to quantify what’s going on at this sacred meal, clearly in teaching us to remember that “This is His body” and “This is His blood” He intended that this should shock us repeatedly as to the nature of the relation-ship we are called to have with Him. Jesus wants to get into us.
The only way He can get into us is if we eat Him and drink Him. It’s just a figure of speech you say. It’s just poetic license. That bread does not become His body and the wine does not become His blood before we eat and drink. Thus we parry what Jesus is trying to do in us.
I sometimes actually think when I sit down to one of Bonnie’s exquisite meals what becomes of those fresh beans and home made bread. Somehow the food turns into fingernails and hair and muscle and bone. It even turns into intestinal tissue. It becomes a part of me automatically without my even thinking about it.
Thus we think it good to be careful what we eat. I noticed at Trader Joe’s recently that one can buy organic stuff I never thought about organically before. Why? To keep out of our bodies the various chemicals that have been introduced to our food to make it grow better, but do damage to our bodies. So we try to eat healthy foods, for our bodies’ sakes. You are what you eat, it has been said.
And so it is, in far more than a physical sense. We sometimes speak of “con-suming interests” that grab people. They have virtually “eaten” these interests. “Con-sume” is such an interesting word. Eating is the most intimate way to consume, but we use the word to refer to other ways of being taken over inside.
People may be consumed with boredom or drugs, or alcohol, or with anger and hatred. These things may actually change the bodies of those who are consumed with them. These are bad things.
But there are good consuming interests too. When summer passes to autumn, and when the winter’s cold passes to the warmth of spring young men and women are con-sumed with thoughts of each other. You can see it in their eyes. I watch young people walking hand in hand on campus at Purdue in the fall, their faces flushed with new love. All their thoughts are of the other. This is a lovely thing.
I see how young mothers in particular are consumed with caring for their little ones. We may be consumed with our careers, with our homes, investments, sports, the art—music, physical fitness, indeed, to excel in any endeavor we must give ourselves diligently to it. Sometimes being consumed with a good thing like this can lead to a more wholesome life. There is something fulfilling in being consumed in a good way.
And somehow in this world of consuming interests Jesus says to us, “unless you consume my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.” We understand this partly when we realize that all the various things that may consume us at the moment will pass.
I saw during the half time of the Purdue/Notre Dame game an interview with Terry Hanratty, once a great Notre Dame quarterback. But now he has gray hair and his body doesn’t look heroic. Stardom in sports is a temporary stage of life.
I hear tragic stories of once great scholars at University Place whose minds are gone. Their bodies are hulls once inhabited by brilliant minds. A couple years ago I visited a dear physician friend at St. Mary’s Health Care center over in Lafayette. He cared so tenderly for friends of mine long gone now. I would speak to this beloved doctor now reduced by Alzheimer’s and felt so bad. How compassionate he was as a doctor. I at-tended his funeral, thinking the place would be packed with grateful former patients. But the place was not packed.
Seeing how passing are all these things that may consume us it should make us sit up and listen to Jesus’ indiscreet words about eating and drinking Him—of consuming Him. Not in some fanatic way that makes us become exhibitionists, but in a way that controls us from deep within. Somehow consuming Jesus has effects lingering even be-yond the life of the body.
The ancient Jews were instructed to begin and end the day by saying, “Hear O Is-rael, the Lord our God, one Lord.” Day after day they reminded themselves to whom they belonged. In instructing Israel in this habit, Moses was a schoolmaster leading us to eat and drink of the Jesus Christ.
When we take the Sacrament of the Lord’s Table, holding bread that we see bro-ken before us at this central table, and drinking wine that I will always pour out very de-liberately while speaking the words Jesus said about the pouring out of His blood, we en-gage in a literal act of eating and drinking that focuses the whole bearing of our lives, if we have come to Jesus.
The Apostle Paul taught us, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Ponder doing what you do in the course of the day done consciously as unto the Lord Jesus. You have fed on Him in the morning. Digest Him during the days of your life.
We don’t understand these things. I don’t understand what part is God’s to do and what part is ours to do in working out a life consuming Jesus and then being con-sumed with following Jesus. But this I have seen that nobody gets into the Jesus way who does not intend to.
We can think of many reasons why we should take Jesus lightly rather than as a consuming focus for our lives. We are put off by people who have been offensive to us in their ways—who consider themselves strong Christians. We find it hard to maintain the intensity we once felt. We began with a flourish. But the interest has waned. We’re back where we started. I know how this is. I fight the same battle.
Jesus taught us many things about this pilgrimage of faith. He let His disciples know that the pilgrimage meant literally following Him—because they would be object lessons for Christians ever after. And then He taught them and us that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood. And this lets us know there is something “extreme” about His being in us.
Jesus gave us other pictures of His intentions for and with us. He also told us we are friends who share with Him a common interest—to do the will of the Father. He told us we are like servants who are given tasks to be done. He told us we are like builders planning a house who must count the cost before we start to build, lest we run out before the house is done. And He told us that life is an on-going thing, a matter of following after Him. We are pilgrims on a journey. In all of this there is a purpose larger than the purposes of life that must be all consuming—but that this all-consuming faith makes life better rather than worse.
I mentioned to the children that we come every Sunday to church to be reminded often about what is really important. We have Christmas and Good Friday/Easter as fes-tal moments in the year that remind us of the two poles of Jesus’ birth and death—that find their parallel in our birth and death—and the promise of the resurrection. As we eat every day so every day we must consume Jesus if He is to be in us all the time. The Lord’s Supper helps us to understand this as we take into our mouths the elements of bread and wine. Jesus must get into us as intimately as food does, and work on our lives as thoroughly as food nourishes and renews us. Do you get the idea? We must do the eating, but Jesus will do the work in us, in our hearts, that food we eat does on our physi-cal bodies.
Once again as we come to this Table of the Lord, to eat the bread together and drink the wine poured out for us, remember who it is by whom you identify yourself as a Christian—that you belong to Him, that He is in your heart, and that His presence there affects your life. Then let life take its course, knowing that you belong to Him. And He is giving to us life.
One final word. Jesus not only feeds us Himself. He also says to us, “Open your heart so I can eat with you.” Jesus wants to come in to eat with us, a symbol of fellow-ship, if we will open the door and invite Him. In a way it’s an odd mix of word pictures: eat His flesh and invite Him in to eat with you. And so it is. Ponder these things and let your heart move in this direction.
O Lord, how poorly we understand the simple matters you have taught us. But grant that we may not so much understand as we may experience your intentions for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at October 1, 2006 09:30 AM