John 6:51-58
“Very truly, I tell you,” said Jesus, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” This is such graphic language. Well, let’s be honest. It’s more than graphic, it’s cannibalistic. Eat my flesh? Drink my blood? It’s no wonder the Ioudaioi—those Jews who were challenging Jesus at every turn—it’s no wonder they found what he was saying confusing and even repulsive.
Just to be clear, the word translated here as “flesh,” sarx in the Greek, essentially means meat. And blood. . . well, blood is blood is blood and it is absolutely forbidden for an observant Jew to eat or drink it, or even to eat meat with the blood still in it. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood,” says God in Leviticus, “and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar, for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. Therefore I have said to the Israelites, ‘No person among you shall eat blood, nor shall any alien who resides among you eat blood.”[1] That’s the rule for the blood of sheep and goats and cattle and every other animal, so for Jesus to tell people crowding around him that they need to eat his flesh and drink his blood would be beyond shocking.
So why does Jesus use such scandalous language here in the sixth chapter of John?
The rhetoric of cannibalism had a long tradition in the ancient world because it was particularly effective for its shock value when someone really wanted to drive home a point. In the 26th chapter of Leviticus we find a series of blessings and curses that are a sort of codicil to the covenant between God and the people of Israel. If the people remain faithful to the covenant, God will make the land rich, the trees will yield plentiful fruit, enemies will be routed, the rains will fall in due season, and so on. One of my favorite things God says here is “I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you.” Not exactly warm and fuzzy.
On the flip side, the curses for breaking the covenant are pretty severe: fields that don’t produce, famine, wild animals killing children and destroying the fields and vineyards, and finally the ultimate curse, being attacked by enemies and held under siege so that “you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.”
Torah repeats the curse in Deuteronomy[2], and Jeremiah and Ezekiel both expand on the threat of cannibalism as a reminder to the people that being unfaithful to the covenant has penalties[3].
The prophet Micah uses the rhetoric of cannibalism as a sharp polemic to chastise the unfaithful rulers of Judah and Israel:
Listen, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Should you not know justice?—
you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin off my people
and the flesh off their bones,
who eat the flesh of my people,
flay their skin off them,
break their bones in pieces,
and chop them up like meat in a kettle,
like flesh in a caldron.[4]
Yikes.
The invective of cannibalism was common throughout the Greco-Roman world and was most commonly used to denounce treachery, betrayal, faithlessness, factionalism and threats to society. Homer described the warriors arrayed against Troy as blood-thirsty predators. Agamemnon’s vicious fighting style is compared to “wolves, who tear flesh raw” and Achilles’ rage is so intense that he desires to cut up Hector’s flesh and eat it raw. In a historically later example, Cicero vilified Mark Antony saying, “he gorged himself with the blood of citizens.”
The upshot of all this is that the people listening to Jesus have heard this kind of jargon before, but not the way Jesus is using it. Jesus, here in chapter six of John, takes this all this unsavory language and subverts it—he reverses its direction. Instead of a curse for breaking the covenant, eating his flesh and blood become the seal and sign of a new covenant with God through him. Instead of being a threat of the worst kind of destruction, his flesh and blood bring the promise of eternal life. Instead of fearing the gruesome penalty for causing strife, divisions and factions in society, his followers will be bonded into a profound unity with him and with the Father, a unity so deep that “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.”
When Jesus refers to himself as “the living bread that came down from heaven” then goes on to say “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world,” this is obviously sacramental language. He is pointing to the cross, but also beyond the cross to the table of companionship and the eucharist that binds us to Christ and to each other.
When he describes himself as “the living bread come down from heaven” and asserts that he gives his flesh “for the life of the world,” he is claiming for himself the mystical descriptions of John’s prologue in the first chapter. He is telling us that he is the Word who became flesh and lives among us. He is telling us that he is the one in whom there is life, a life that is the light of all humanity. He is, in short, telling us that he is the Cosmic Christ, the Word who was with God, the logos who brought all things into being.
Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg wrote, “[W]hen Jesus referred to his body and blood, he meant the bread and wine should become, in the minds and hearts of his followers, fully associated with him in the entire spectrum of his life – his person, his teachings and his works. In other words, Jesus expected to be fully understood and received through active participation by faith. By faith in Him, the believer would partake of salvation, which is found in Jesus alone and is offered freely to all. So let me summarize. Jesus’ statement about his body and blood is true and no other picture could have made it clearer. His flesh and his blood, meaning Jesus Himself – the whole Jesus – is the only thing that can sustain a human being to life everlasting.[5]”
The central theme of the Gospel of John is incarnation, a word that literally means “in the flesh.” Christ is the intersection, the nexus between the spiritual and invisible God and the visible material creation. Jesus, as the Christ, is God’s declaration that God is present in, with, and under all of creation. The bread and wine of communion is our reminder that Christ is present in, with, and under the everyday things of life that sustain us, that God in Christ is sustaining us and traveling through life with us. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them,” said Jesus.
When we share the sacrament of the table, we are reminded that Jesus has bound us together to be the body of Christ, to carry the life that brings light to the world into the world for the life of the world.
“Both Christ cosmically and Jesus personally make the unbelievable believable and the unthinkable desirable,” said Richard Rohr. “Jesus Christ is a Sacrament of the Presence of God for the whole universe!” Rohr went on to say, ““We must keep eating and drinking the Mystery, until one day it dawns on us, in an undefended moment, ‘My God, I really am what I eat! I also am the Body of Christ.’[6]
[1] Leviticus 17:11-12
[2] Deuteronomy 28:53ff
[3] Jeremiah 19:9; Ezekiel 5:10
[4] Micah 3:1-3
[5] Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, Eli. The Jewish Gospel of John: Discovering Jesus, King of All Israel, p. 97. Jewish Studies for Christians. Kindle Edition.
[6] Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe
Thoughts Along the Way 