This Bread is My Flesh

                               

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world.” John 5:51

 

A couple of weeks ago when I was writing my blog, Why Did You Doubt? I had an “Aha!” moment.  It happened when I was reading John chapter 6 where Jesus was talking to the people who had hunted him down after his feeding of the five thousand with just five loaves and two fish, because they were enamored with the idea of having a king who could provide food as needed.  They compared Jesus to Moses who had provided “bread from heaven” for their forefathers in the desert, and urged Jesus to show them what he could do for them.

Jesus, who was never particularly concerned about his popularity, took that opportunity to so completely alienate and disgust the crowd that, by the time he was finished, even his devoted followers were appalled and some stopped following him altogether. 

What did he say that was so outrageous?  He began by telling them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, it was his Father who gave them the true bread from heaven, and he was that bread.  They began to murmur in disapproval at that point, but Jesus was only warming up.  He told them, “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world.” (John 6:49-51)

Now the people were offended! Why in the world would someone talk about eating his flesh, they wondered?  That was just repulsive.

Undisturbed by their grumbling, Jesus continued, “I tell you the truth, 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 him 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 him.  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 forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53-58)

Now, those of us who are familiar with the concept of communion and the bread and wine are a bit desensitized to how this must have sounded to the people who were hearing him say this for the first time.  But, even with the advantage of our perspective, you have to admit that Jesus went straight for the shock value in that speech.  He took no pains to carefully choose words that were lovely and flowery and inoffensive.  He not only said to eat his flesh, he said we should “feed on” him.  I don’t know about you, but for me that conjures up images of lions ripping apart a bloody gazelle.

I’m pretty sure that was the effect he was going for.  His aim was never to win over the people as if he was running for office, but, because of humanity’s Action/Consequence way of evaluating everything, the people felt he had given them some pretty compelling reasons to make him their leader. This speech was his way of “throwing the election” while telling them the real story. He had bread to give them all right, but it was his own flesh. 

And, for me, that’s where the “Aha!” moment came in. If you’re like me you’ve probably heard a lot about Jesus’ blood (e.g. Romans 5:9 – We were justified by his blood; Ephesians 1:7 – We received redemption, forgiveness of sins through his blood; Ephesians 2:13 – We are brought near by the blood of Christ; Colossians 1:20 – He made peace for us through his blood; Hebrews 9:22 – Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness); we even sing a lot of songs about the blood; but, I’ve never given much thought to Jesus’ flesh.  As a matter of fact, I’ve always just sort of lumped them together—flesh and blood.  To me they simply represented the fact that Jesus died for us.  When I took communion, I wondered in passing about what it meant to ingest Christ’s body.  I thought it must represent each of us being a part of the universal Body of Christ--the Church, and let it go at that.

But this passage, and many others, has a lot to say about flesh.  In the Greek, the word used is “Sarx”, and in addition to its meaning of ‘the flesh of a living creature, as opposed to a dead creature’, it is used to refer to the corrupt nature of man.  Jesus uses it that way in Matthew, Mark and Luke in the context of the Garden of Gethsemane when the disciples kept nodding off, even though Jesus had asked them to give him some prayer support.  Finding them sleeping, Jesus asked, “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” Then he said, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

In John 3:6 Jesus indicated that the reason we need to be born again is because, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”   At the end of the story in John 6, when everyone had left in disgust, Jesus was alone with the twelve and he said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.” (John 6:63). In Romans 7:18, Paul says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out.”  And again, in Romans 8:6-8 he says, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.  The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”

From these scriptures, we can deduce that in our corrupt nature, referred to as “flesh”, we have about as much chance of being good enough to please God as the Ethiopian, referred to in Jeremiah 13:23, had of changing his skin or the leopard had of changing his spots, both of those things having to do with something inherent in their flesh.  In Ephesians 2 Paul tells us that, because we were all living in our Action/Consequence infused flesh, we were, by nature-- i.e. by virtue of simply being human--objects of God’s wrath; or in the common vernacular, going to hell.  We had no hope.

For that very reason, as John tells us in chapter 1 verse 14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”.  Paul says, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh”. (Romans 8:3);  and, again, in Colossians 1:21-22 Paul says, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him”.

Jesus came “in the flesh”, so that, in his flesh, he could live a perfect life and give us the credit for it. In our own contaminated flesh we were hopeless, but he gave us his perfect flesh in replacement. He applied to our account all of the obedience he accomplished in the flesh, erasing all of our fleshly disobedience.  

The word “Sarx” refers specifically to the flesh of a living creature, not a dead one.  Jesus referred to himself as the Living Bread, and said that as we are nourished by him we remain in him--covered in his righteousness; and he remains in us, giving us his life, daily reminding us of his finished work on our behalf.  “If anyone eats of this bread,” he said, “he will live forever.” 

The next time I partake of the communion bread, I will say with Paul, “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 3:20)