Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 6-7.

We often focus on what Jesus meant in this passage by telling the people that unless they eat His blood and drink His blood they have no life in them, and I will get to that.  However, I find it interesting that those to whom Jesus spoke were from among the five thousand He had fed with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.  When Jesus told them to believe in Him, they asked Him for a sign, giving the example of manna which Moses gave their ancestors in the wilderness.  I am quite confident that John was completely aware of the irony of the people demanding a sign comparable to the people being fed manna in the wilderness just after being fed in the “wilderness”.  I don’t want to stop there.  We see this behavior a lot.  We even exhibit it.  Asking God for a sign, after He has already given us one.  Asking God for direction in our lives after He has given us guidance as to what we should do.

Which brings me to my understanding of what Jesus meant when He tells us that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood we will not have life.  As I read this passage I saw it as mirroring the construction where Jesus told those who wished to follow Him that they must be willing to give up their lives for Him.  Here Jesus tells us that we must make Him part of us, that we must be prepared to experience suffering just as He was soon to experience suffering.  We must allow God’s Spirit to transform us to be like Him.  Jesus called for us to faithfully do God’s will even when it means ostracization and persecution.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 6-7.

So, after Jesus taught that only those who ate His flesh and drank His blood would have eternal life, many of His disciples had trouble accepting His teaching.  When Jesus heard their complaints He further clarified His teaching on this subject.  Which led many of His disciples to leave off from following Him.  So, what was it about Jesus’ follow-up which was the point of no return for so many of those who had followed Him up until then?  It was when He said that the flesh counts for nothing.  At this point they realized that following Jesus was not going to get them a “place” in the power structure of this world.  Jesus was neither going to lead a revolt to overthrow the Romans, nor was He angling for a “place at the table” within the existing power structure.  When Jesus asked the Twelve if they wanted to leave as well, Peter answered for them, revealing that he, and the rest of the Twelve (well, perhaps not Judas Iscariot), understood and accepted this.  Peter and the others realized that what Jesus was teaching was much more important than overthrowing the existing power structure, or finding a place within it.

There is truth in what I wrote above, so I am going to leave it in, but it does not capture the thoughts I was going for when I began to write.  As a result, I am going to discuss the other thought I had about this passage.  When Jesus talks about our need to eat His flesh and drink His blood, He is talking about our need to re-imagine the pyramid of needs.  The pyramid of needs has food and water as our most basic needs: the needs that people must satisfy to some minimum level before they will seek to meet any other need.  Jesus was telling us that He fulfills our most basic need, even before physical food and water.  This is a difficult thing for us to accept, and we can only do so if God draws us to Him.  In fact, part of what makes it so difficult is that we can in no way satisfy that need by our own actions.  We must accept that our most basic need is satisfied only because God offers it to us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 6-7.

Yet again I noticed something I have never heard anyone comment on.  In this account of the feeding of the five thousand, Andrew presents the boy with five loaves and two fish in response to Jesus asking where they could buy food to feed the crowd.  So, the context suggests that this boy had those five loaves and two fish there in order to sell them to someone in the crowd.  I have no thoughts at this time on what meaning there is to that.  I was just struck by the fact that I had never noticed it before and that I have never heard, or read, anyone comment upon it.

Interestingly, some of those who were fed followed Jesus across the lake and demanded a sign of Him in order to believe in Him.  They asked Him to do something comparable to Moses giving their ancestors manna.  This suggests that while the crowd acknowledged that Jesus provided them with bread, they did not see it as miraculous that He did so.  Again, I am not sure what meaning there is to that. It is just something I noticed.  However, that exchange does contain something of import, something which should influence our understanding of Jesus’ teachings about asking God for what we want.  Jesus tells the crowd, and us, not to work for food which spoils, but instead to work for the food of eternal life.  We should not work for material pleasures, instead we should work for that which has eternal value.  We should not ask God for things which will satisfy our earthly wants, but for things which will give us eternal pleasure.  We should ask God to give us opportunities to introduce others to Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 6-7

When John wrote that Jesus said “I am the bread of life,” he was returning to the theme he touched upon when Jesus told His disciples that He had food which they did not know about after talking to the Samaritan woman at the well.  Jesus taught, and John sought to emphasize, that focusing on doing God’s will should come before focusing on our material desires.  We need to consume Jesus’ body and blood the way in which He consumed doing the Father’s work.  In a way, John is foreshadowing the saying, “You are what you eat.”  We need to make Jesus’ teachings and actions our sustenance as if we were consuming His body and blood.  We need to allow His Spirit to transform us into Him.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 6-7

After Jesus fed the five thousand, the crowd began to think He was the Messiah and about to lead a revolt against Rome.  In fact, they were prepared to begin that revolt immediately.  Even after Jesus had cooled their blood by withdrawing from them and crossing the lake, the people sought what Jesus could do for them rather than what they could do for God.  In a similar manner to which Jesus had told His disciples that doing God’s will was nourishment for Him, He told people that they should eat His flesh and drink His blood.  That is, He told them that they needed to internalize His teachings and allow them to transform their lives. 

After this, Jesus stayed out of Judea, because He knew that His preaching there at this time would have set off a rebellion against Rome.  When it was time for the Festival of Shelters, Jesus delayed going up to Jerusalem.  As best I can tell from what is written here this was to avoid leading a large group into Jerusalem.  Jesus then went up to Jerusalem secretly, only beginning to teach openly in the Temple after He arrived.  As He taught, there was much debate among the people.  Some thought He was the Messiah, while others were convinced that He could not be.  When the Jewish leaders began to sense that the crowd thought He was the Messiah, they sought to arrest Him, but refrained from doing so because they feared that doing so would set off riots.

I wrote all of the above hoping it would come together to express the meaning I feel from this passage.  It did not, largely because I was not quite sure how to express that meaning.  Ultimately, Jesus refuses to meet our expectations.  Rather, He insists that we strive to meet His.