“They were puzzled”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, August 22, 2022
John 6:52-59 (Forward, p. 24) CEV p. 1109
We are told here that the crowds that heard Jesus this day started arguing among themselves, saying, “How can he give us his flesh to eat?” Quite frankly, they were puzzled—and why not? And so too should we, for how can a person give his own flesh to others to eat?
Of course, many church people, knowing ‘the rest of the story’, knowing what was later said and done, will glibly say that Jesus is talking about the Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Last Supper. And indeed, that idea is quite understandable and quite valid, for that indeed is what eating the flesh of Jesus has come to mean.
But, to say this is to jump ahead, and forget, or neglect, the original context of what Jesus said that day. New Testament Bible scholars customarily speak of three contexts when it comes to gospel accounts, Sitz in Leben Jesu, Sitz in Leben Kirke and Sitz in Leben Eugalion, that is, the situation of Jesus, of the church and of the evangelist, respectively. In other words, what was Jesus trying to say to His original audience, what did the church understand it to mean, and how did the evangelist work it into his finished text.
This distinction is important, for Bible scholars constantly tell us that we need to do, first and foremost, is to examine what was said, and why, in its original context. Here we need to take seriously the conviction of most Bible scholars that any utterance found in the Scriptures did have a meaning and message for its original hearers. The particular words may now be understood to have another or subsidiary meaning, but they nevertheless were still designed to say something in the here and then of that past era. So here we need to ask who Jesus’ audience was and what they would have taken from His words.
Jesus’ original audience took His words about eating His flesh literally, but was that the only option? We customarily speak of someone having ‘to eat his words’ and certainly this kind of idea is found later on in the Scriptures (see Revelation 10:9-10, where the Seer is instructed to eat the words of a scroll.) Clearly, the Seer is to ingest those words, take them to heart and make them part of his very being.
And does this not make sense in Jesus’ original context? Jesus is constantly talking about people receiving Him and having faith in Him. Is this kind of internalizing not a kind of ‘eating’ as well, making Jesus part of our very being, our very existence? It makes sense.
And, does this not make sense even with our later understanding of Jesus’ words as applying to the Eucharist? Surely a mere pressing of a Communion wafer to our lips or an ingestion of the same is relatively meaningless and inconsequential if not also accompanied by faith. Indeed, this is one of the primary points that the Church Reformers tried to make.
And so, once again, Jesus is calling them—and each of us—to entrust Him with our lives, allow Him to be part and parcel of everything that we are and do, and trust Him in everything. Amen.
Forward notes: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (verse 56).
“After thirty years of teaching, I laugh when I say I never intended to spend my career facing a room full of strangers. Once I got over my nervousness, though, I discovered that hidden in each student was an undiscovered world—if only I could find the door. The sullen girl was terrified because she was the first in her family to go to college. The boy hiding under his cap wanted to be a poet. The list is endless, but the lesson is simple: beneath flesh and blood is the real person.
“Jesus’s lesson strikes home. Many saw only his outward appearance: Jesus was an itinerant preacher, the son of a carpenter, someone who looked quite ordinary. Yet he healed and taught. He offered the true food of God’s Word to all who would listen.
“His tangible flesh and blood were more than they seemed. He was and is the bread that came down from heaven, offering eternal life to all those who listen. Jesus is the teacher beyond all teachers, opening our doors to the glorious gift of eternal life.”
Moving Forward: “Do you judge a book by its cover?”