Just as the title says, the question is in the minds of listeners everywhere.
John 6:51-58; Ephesians 5:15-20; Psalm 34:9-14; Proverbs 9:1-6
This week’s sermon is going to be a bit “headier” than usual, in large part because I want to focus on trying to answer, a little bit more clearly than Jesus did, the question the Jews asked: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” I know this could be considered a rather dangerous proposition, I mean, who am I to try and be more clear than Jesus, but I think in this case it’s justified. Jesus is really good at answering questions in such a way that you’re left more confused afterwards.
So that’s what this is about — “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” First we need to start near the beginning. Not at the beginning, mind you, though that is important, simply near it. In Exodus 16, the people of Israel found themselves in the middle of the desert and complained so much about their hunger that they wished they were back in slavery. Then God said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.” The people gathered this “manna”, which was provided through absolutely no effort of their own, and therefore didn’t die of starvation. God fed them bread from heaven and they lived.
In Deuteronomy 8, Moses, in retelling this story to the people before their entrance to the Promised Land, says, “[God] humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Remember this bit; it’ll be important later.
So already we have an example of God providing for his people — both spiritually and physically — through bread that He sent. For the manna wasn’t just to sustain the people’s bodies, but also to remind them that God is trustworthy and He will take care of his people. So when we get to the feeding of the five thousand, and the people just experienced an overabundance of “bread”, their physical needs met, I have to wonder if they were now looking for something to meet a spiritual need as well, even if they weren’t aware of it.
Then, Jesus begins to explain to the people what is going on. After the people remember the manna in the desert, Jesus says, and I’m jumping around a bit in John 6 now, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven… I am the bread of life. 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 will give for the life of the world.”
At this point the Jews pose their own question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus then replies, “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… This is the bread that came down from heaven.”
This is an answer to their question, but it’s still a rather awkward answer for the people. They’re a little weirded out at this point. We’ll read next week that many of his followers left at this point, but the Twelve stuck around. I have to think that they had this discussion in their minds when, while celebrating a last Passover meal with them, something interesting happens (recorded in Mark 14):
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,’ he said to them.”
At this point, I’d imagine it’s starting to make a bit more sense to the Twelve; Jesus, now setting himself up as the Passover Lamb, saving the people from sin and death, references back to his statements in the Capernaum synagogue about his flesh and blood bringing life to those who eat of it.
By the time Paul is writing his first letter to the Corinthians, this meal had become part of Christian worship. While in that letter Paul is seeking to solve a problem the people are having with the Lord’s Supper, we can get an idea of the intent — the Church gathers together to, basically, do what Jesus said to do — take and eat bread and wine, which is Jesus’ body and blood, that they might have eternal life.
But of course the true answer to the people’s question is in Philippians 2. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” It is because this man, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!”
Jesus can give us his flesh and body to eat because he is God Incarnate. He is the bread of life from heaven, sent by the Father, “so that the one who feeds on [him] will live because of [him]”, to paraphrase John 6:57. And that is what we profess when we’ll come to the Lord’s Table, that “whoever eats [his] flesh and drinks [his] blood has eternal life, and [he] will raise them up at the last day.”