Ew.

          At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 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’?”

          “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered.  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.  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.  No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.  Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.  I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 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.”

           Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

          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. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 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. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”  He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. (John 6:41-59)

          I’ll say it for you, “Ew.” Eat his flesh? Drink His blood? I know they’re figures of speech, but really, was it necessary that Jesus go out of His way to be offensive? We need trigger warnings! Then again, it’s out of the Bible, so it’s all offensive. Wait – what happened to all religions being alike? Isn’t that what everyone says? It looks like Jesus was going out of His way to prove that theory wrong. What happened to “everyone goes to heaven”? This passage makes it sound as though the only ones who get to heaven are the ones who are offensive in their behavior.

          The Jews understood that He was being offensive. I don’t think they were all so naïve as to think He was talking about His being butchered and served up on a silver platter… but isn’t that what happened? In fact, if you read the details of the Passover sacrifice and meal, you’ll see some obvious parallels. Still, the Jews got it. Jesus didn’t come here to pull punches and avoid offense. He was counter-cultural. There are parts of our society that are counter-cultural, but that doesn’t mean He agrees with them. Their counter-culturalism is picky, narrow, and often fueled by adolescent angst. His counter-culturalism is deep and universal. 

          So, yes, we must eat His flesh and drink His blood. We must make Him our source of everything that gives us life. Doing so will make us scandalous to others. I won’t suggest being unnecessarily so, but being nice isn’t the definition of Christianity. But what about all that stuff about loving, caring, showing compassion? Oh yes, it’s all in there. I haven’t forgotten John 3:16, John 17, I Corinthians 13:4-8, or I John 4. Love is in there. But what is loving about telling people lies just so they feel good? 

          When the French were suffering, Marie Antoinette supposedly said, “Let them eat cake!” That is what our society says, too. Jesus says, “Let them eat Me.”