Partaking of Jesus’s Body.

As I sit here at my desk in the room where I meet with my lord every day – I imagine Hm sitting on a chair here with me. I don’t need to go into a special “prophetic” mode, I can simply speak to him and listen to what he says.

“This presence of mine which I am glad you are learning to appreciate, is available to everyone of my dear children. I am speaking continually to you all, yet the noise of the world and your heart’s desires drowns out much of it. That is why you need my written word to bring you back to what you know is true and you can take your communication forward from there. As you have said at the beginning – ours is a real relationship, an interaction between the two of us, so as you speak to me I am answering you in various ways. When you look back at the end of the day you will be able to detect how I have guided you and be able to just rejoice and enjoy our daily togetherness.”

Today we are looking back again at John’s Gospel from chapter 6:34 to 59. Last time we focused on God’s grace in calling us and including us in his kingdom plan. We focused on the reality that on our own we would not come to God, but that he draws us to himself. With the important reminder that we have to accept this gift by faith for it to become real.

Before we go on, let us take a step back again and look at the wider context of this passage. It started with a miraculous feeding of the 5000. We saw that this event happened at the time of the Passover. (v4). We reflected that the miracle was a reminder to the people and to us of God’s rescue of his people from Egypt, which was celebrated at the Passover annually. Having rescued the people God took them into the desert. One of the things that they had to learn was to be totally dependent on Him for everything. To teach them this in the desert surroundings where there was nothing else available he fed them with manna every day. This was a reminder that they were able to and should depend on him entirely for their sustenance. This is a very real reminder to us today as well.

The people demonstrated their lack of faith and appreciation by grumbling, instead of being thankful. This made God very angry. Today, we are reminded in chapter 6:43 of this attitude which demonstrates a clear lack of trust in the fact that God does provide and knows what’s best for us.

From verse 44 Jesus returns to the central message of obtaining eternal life. He first reminds the reader that the initial step is to listen to the Father which will lead them to Jesus. However, he takes this a step further in revealing that he represents the Father. That in Him we can actually meet with and listen to what the Father has to say (vv45, 46).

He now escalates his message by saying that true faith is demonstrated by actually eating the bread. He then reminds them, verse 48, that he is the bread, Verse 51. He then takes this a step further and reveals that the bread is actually his flesh which he will give by his life for the world. Going on from verse 53 he takes this concept of eating the flesh and drinking the blood a step further. What he is doing here is drawing this whole teaching of the bread to a point which indicates the central teaching of the gospel. The teaching that he has to die on the cross. for the sins of the world. And what is more it is not just enough to know this but that one must actually partake of this by faith represented by actually eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Saviour.

Standing back and looking at the bigger picture we can see that setting the whole narrative against the backdrop of the Passover was pointing to the real Passover which happened in the week when Jesus was crucified. Placing this teaching of the centrality of Jesus‘s work on the cross to provide eternal life against the backdrop of the Passover in the center of the first half of the gospel highlights its centrality in the life and mission of Jesus.

Reading this message and seeing how John has structured it to enable us, the reader to understand the real nature of Jesus’s mission to the world and how we need to relate to that to benefit from it as we believe it and trust in the One who the message is about, has been really exciting. Making it all the more real. I trust that this has been an exercise which has strengthened your faith. If there is anyone who who may read this and has not yet placed their trust in Jesus, maybe this will encourage you to do that.

May our Lord bless you all. Till next week then.