“When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’”(Jo. 6:60).
Jesus is creating a stir in our Gospel today: challenging conventional wisdom and religious understanding. As we’ve heard over the last few Sundays, Jesus called himself “the bread of life” (Jo. 6:35); “the living bread” (Jo. 6:51) “the bread that came down from heaven” (Jo. 6:41). Jesus is likening himself to the manna provided by God in the wilderness, but with this difference: if you eat this bread, different from the manna of old times, you will live forever.
Jesus then says “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jo. 6:51). By moving beyond “the bread of life” and identifying that bread with his “flesh,” Jesus was doing something that shocked the people who were listening. When Jesus talks about eating and drinking his flesh and blood, everyone’s offended, including his disciples. Nobody who was listening said, “It’s just a metaphor! He’s speaking figuratively! It’s just spiritually true!” No, they took him at his word: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jo. 6:55), as he says. That’s why we hear today, “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’”(Jo. 6:60).
Just in case the disciples were passing on other people’s complaints, while masking their own, Jesus clarifies the source by asking them, “Does this offend you?” (Jo. 6:61). I guess the disciples’ answer to that rhetorical question, even if unspoken, was “Yes, it offends us!” And that in turn provokes our own question, which is “Why were they offended?”
In the Judaism of Jesus’ day, talk about eating and drinking a person’s flesh and blood was just as frowned upon then as it is today. For religious Jews, blood conveyed life; as it says in Leviticus, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood… for making atonement for your lives on the altar… Therefore I have said to the people of Israel: No person among you shall eat blood” (Lev. 17:11-12). The blood of bulls and goats was poured out in sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.
The Levitical prohibition against consuming blood because of its sacred character must have made Jesus’ statement about eating his flesh and drinking his blood sound not just like crazy talk, but more like sacrilegious talk. No one could keep kosher if that kind of bread was on the menu. Jesus’ discourse on the bread of life had ended up in a bizarre, weird place, in the eyes of observant Jews. Just so we don’t miss the point, the Gospel writer tells us, “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him” (Jo. 6:66).
Of course, not everyone turned away. Here, as so often in the Gospels, Peter stands in for the rest of the group in his telling confession, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (Jo. 6:68-69). Jesus’ words, which turned many away, are in fact the key to eternal life. In the ears of Peter and of the twelve, they evoke faith and deeper understanding.
It is the Levitical text that actually holds the key: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11). Jesus’ invitation to eat his flesh and drink his blood is an invitation to share the life of Christ, to incorporate it within ourselves. The Levitical mention of the blood of sacrifice, “for making atonement for your lives on the altar” (Lev. 17:11), is a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Christ, offered once for all upon the cross. His is the atoning sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world.
This is the sacrifice we join in each Sunday as we gather for worship and prayer in the Eucharist. Here, through Christ’s sacrifice, we are able to be offered as a living sacrifice ourselves, as St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). What a privilege this is!
His flesh is food indeed and his blood is drink indeed, as Jesus says in our Gospel: not just a metaphor, not just a figure. Again, as St. Paul says in Romans “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom. 12:2). Though Holy Communion is certainly spiritual, Christ’s Body and Blood are really present in the sacrament of the altar. It’s this that makes it possible for us to receive the body and blood of the Lord. Here we eat and drink “after a heavenly and spiritual manner,” by faith, as it says in the Articles of Religion. The benefits for us are spiritual but the presence is real.
“When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’” (Jo. 6:60). Today, as we gather at this altar, we’re invited to place our faith in Christ. We’re invited to the feast. Our lives, and our minds, must be transformed. Like Peter, may we come to believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.