The Feast of Flesh and Blood

  

  As  I was translating John 6,  I came to the section where Jesus talked about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, starting around verse 51. This pericope begins with one of John's "I am" pronouncements. "I am the bread which came down from heaven".... After Jesus made this statement an argument started among the Jews. Who can blame them? It is hard for me to understand that this bread was the "food of angels". Do angels eat?  So I could see the Jews murmuring. Then Jesus said He was that bread. What does that mean, in a practical sense? I think scholars are still surmising what that meant in any sense!
      Jesus of course knowing that this caused a stir, proceeded to stir the pot more. Naturally.  Remember He is in the synagogue in Capernaum teaching! If you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not die like your fathers did. That's an eye opener.  I bet no one was asleep during this service.  You eat my flesh and drink my blood you will live forever. If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, I have no part in you! Wow, He said this to clean, pure, sanitary, kosher Jews no less, eating human flesh and drinking blood!  Even symbolically that sounds crazy.


 oJ trw◊gwn mou th;n sa◊rka kai… pi√nwn mou to; ai»ma e“cei zwh;n ai∆w◊nion, ka˙gw˝ a˙nasthvsw* aujto;n th≥: e∆sca◊th≥ hJme√ra/.  The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day.


      This sounds like your reading from Twilight. It is small wonder some of his disciples had a hard time with this. Some have argued that Christ is talking about the Eucharistic Feast (Brown), but that is a little revisionism. I think he was challenging those he was teaching, rather than talking about the sacrament. What would those Capernaum Jews known about the Eucharist? He had not instituted the sacrament, yet. He was talking about a deeper dedication and that is why we see a few of the disciples leaving. Have you ever googled images of "bread and wine?" Beautiful pictures of the communion table and it should be, I suppose. But Christ was not talking about "bread and wine and the communion table". Google "flesh and blood" and see what you get! Yeah, we might have been offended that Saturday morning too sitting in the prime seats of the synagogue, you know by the window with the sea breeze blowing gently through the curtain from the Sea of Galilee. 'Flesh and Blood', some commentators say is the Hebrew way of referring to the whole man. Why were the disciples offended?  No it is what it is. As Robertson said, "Jesus has here presented to this Galilean multitude the central fact of his atoning death for the spiritual life of the world."  And I might add real life of the world. This type of talk (teaching?) is challenging. Often to me, Christ's demands to follow him and "drink" his cup have a humbling aspect to them. Acceptance of this teaching takes obedience graced with humility.
     Christ was obedient to the Father unto his death. This is why He related eating his flesh to the resurrection.* Obedience and life are tied together in both the OT and the NT. In Deuteronomy 30 Moses told the Israelites to choose life or death. You chose life, Moses said, by obeying the voice of God.  In NT, Paul said Christ was obedient to death, therefore God exalted Him (Philippians 3).  That Saturday morning in Capernaum,  Christ invited us to "eat my flesh and drink my blood in obedient practice and I will raise you up and you will live forever." The words "eat" and "drink" are present participles, which carry a continuous action in their Greek aspect (Robertson). You keep eating my flesh and keep drinking my blood and you will remain in me.  Our continual dedication to be obedient to God, will have us remaining "in Christ".  He said as much in verse 56.


 oJ trw◊gwn mou th;n sa◊rka kai… pi√nwn mou to; ai»ma e∆n e∆moi… me√nei ka˙gw˝ e∆n aujtw/Ç.  The one who eats (again the present participle) my flesh and drinks (pp) my blood remains in me and I in him. 


       The insititution of  the Lord's Supper was the night before the Cross. He gave his life that I might live. And he gave us the Eucharist so we could practice this oneness with Him.  I am finding that as I am obedient to Him in his death, it brings life to me.  The areas in my life where I am being obeidient there is life. Otherwise there is striving and death. The fathers ate the bread in their disobedience and died in the desert, verse 49. We eat Christ food of obedience and keep practicing it, we will live. This is what it means to be a disciple of Christ. 
      As an application I am going through my life and the areas I find where I am not obedient to His will,  I am taking communion in faith that it will change. The areas I don't know His will, I have faith He will reveal it. His death in exchange for my life, righteous for the unrighteous. I may be taking a lot of communion in the days ahead. Bon Appetite.

Seder, Remembering Forward

Communion, supper, reclining at the table, Judas, the sop, and a hymn all remind me of the Last Supper, and of course the Cistene Chapel. You might throw in the "Da Vince Code", but that's taking a left from where I want to go. Where I would like to go is to ask this question. How should I think about the Seder dinner?  My fellowship does a Seder dinner every year. We just finished having it Sunday night. Many Christians are having this experience. It is becoming a very ecumenical experience in Christianity today, which is a good thing. The Jews celebrate it because, well, Passover, Egypt, bondage, the red sea, and Carlton Heston. They lay legitimate claim to it as it celebrates an actual historical event for them. They do it out of obedience to the Lord. What they celebrate now with the Haggadah is a tradition that has grown since the destruction of the temple around 70 CE. Gamaliel the younger set the guidelines for what is a Passover meal celebration. Since his time, let us say, it has been greatly enriched. But where do we Christians fit in?

For Christians this is a much debated issue. We as Christians certainly are doing a good think to build bridges to Judaism and our elder brothers in the Lord, right? Christ command us too to do communion in remembrance, similar to the Jews. Then what is the problem?  It is only a problem IF the Seder dinner was not what the Lord and his disciples were sharing. One look at John's account of the dinner and we realize we have somewhat of a problem. John says Christ was slain on the day of the preparation (John 19). That would put the "Seder" dinner the night before the prep day. The Seder is held after the lamb is slain. No lamb, no dinner at least no seder dinner can happen. The synoptics all put the dinner after the lamb was slain and have Christ killed on the day Passover began (you have to keep in mind for Jews evening is the beginning of a new day). Do we want to start another Christian festival that is really not what it suppose to be? Do we want to risk frustrating our relationships with the Jews in taking one of their most holy days and making it ours, when it might not be authentic? I don't want to do that. I would rather honor the Jews and celebrate the Passover as a remembrance of the exodus. But that is IF it is incorrect.  Some great scholarly work has been done by Jonathan Klawans  Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism and Robert F. O'Toole, "Last Supper," in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (O'Toole). The two authors will give you both sides of the traditional argument. Unfortunately, both have missed the boat.

For me the answer to this centuries long debate is discovered in the answer to another question, Why did Jesus die? Did Christ die to protect us from the death angel? Sounds good, he gives us life eternal. Okay. But how does he give us life eternal? He became judgement for us, for me.  He became sin, he became death. As John R. Stevens has put it "Those first Passover lambs were killed ... to avert judgment. But for Christ, judgment could not be averted. He was the one on whom all judgment was vented. That is why He died on the day after the lambs were killed and the Passover meal was eaten", Beyond Passover.
We as Christians should be careful not to give away our heritage. Our Remembrance is the Lamb that was slain once and for all. We are taking the Lord's Supper looking to the future when we will again eat with him. It is the revelation of the Lord to me in the communion that will changes me. Some of the greatest meetings and revelation of the Lord after the resurrection came during communion. I am thinking particularly of the two on the road to Emmaus. "and he took the bread and blessed it and brake it and their eyes were open and they knew Him" (Luke 24:30-31, 35, KJV).

If we want to share communion with our Jewish elder brothers, I think it is wonderful. It is a great event. God did a marvelous thing in Egypt, for that matter at the Jordan, and at other Passovers. But the meal we call the "last supper" should be celebrated in its own context and as Christians ending sin and looking forward to the appearing of our risen Lord and His kingdom, not looking back. It is a remembrance of a living Lord that is going to appear to us. "When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1john 3:2-3). As He is. Not as He was.
Footnote: Maybe we should remove Elijah's chair. He has already come, "if you can receive it". Who can we make that place setting for? Maybe we should set a place setting for the Lord. He is the one knocking at the door. Lets invite him in to sup with us (Rev.3:20).