Eat My Flesh, Drink My Blood

Jesus’s ministry must have been physically exhausting for Jesus and His disciples. Crowds of needy people pressed in on every side.

The day they found out John the Baptist had been killed, Jesus fed the crowd with five loaves and two fish. After Jesus spent hours in prayer, He walked on water to join His disciples who were struggling to row their ship in a storm. Once Jesus and His disciples arrived on shore at Capernaum, multitudes were waiting for them.

But Jesus knew the real reason why many of them followed Him there.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled,” said Jesus.

He knew the motives of everyone. Jesus knew who followed Him because they believed He was the Son of God. And He knew who was there hoping for another free meal. (He still knows the motives of everyone.)

Jesus used this time to teach the crowd more about Himself. He told them not to work for the food that is temporary, but for food that lasted eternally. But they didn’t understand.

“What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” they ask.

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent,” Jesus stated. The answer was so simple. No work. Just believe in the One sent from God: Jesus.

But they didn’t seem to like the simple answer Jesus gave them.

“What then do you do for a sign, that we may see, and believe You? What work will you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness: as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat,’” they answered.

How is that for human nature? They wanted a sign like the manna sent to their ancestors. Yet, this same crowd were participants in the miracle of bread when Jesus fed thousands of people with five loaves. It is to this crowd, hungry to witness yet another miracle before they believed, that Jesus gave one of His powerful “I AM” statements.

The crowd brought up the manna from heaven. Great. The time was right for Jesus to teach them what the manna from heaven was really about.  

“I am the bread of life,” declared Jesus.  

Jesus teaches them that He was the great I AM, and He was THE bread of life. Past, present and future. The manna sent from heaven to their ancestors was a foreshadowing of Jesus.

In Exodus, the Lord said He would rain bread from heaven. Exodus 16:4

Jesus, the Bread of Life, comes down out of heaven. John 6:51

Manna gave the Israelites temporary life as God sent manna for forty years.

Jesus, the Bread of Life, gives eternal life.

Manna was available for all the Israelites.

Jesus, the Bread of Life, is available for all people.

Manna was provided in abundance to their ancestors and they all ate their fill.

Jesus, the Bread of Life, promised any who come to Him will never hunger or thirst.

Manna was provided as the Israelites were brought out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land.

Jesus, the Bread of Life, provides everyone the way out of slavery to sin into eternal life.  

Jesus continued teaching the crowd as He took the analogy of Himself as the Bread of Life to the next level. He taught that anyone who eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life. Many in the crowd that day did not understand what Jesus was saying. They heard His words, but they didn’t understand that Jesus was not talking about cannibalism. They were turned off by His remarks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Many who had been following Him stopped following Him.

Jesus taught that that bread He would give in exchange for the life of the world was Himself (John 6:51). Eternal life would be gained only through the sacrifice of His flesh and His blood on the cross.

Any person, past, present, or future, who believes that Jesus is the one and only sacrifice—in effect consumes the flesh and blood of Jesus—will have eternal life.

And those who do not eat—consume the flesh and blood sacrifice of Jesus for sin—will not have eternal life.

Today, we commemorate the flesh and blood sacrifice Jesus made when we take the Lord’s supper (communion). By eating the bread and drinking the juice—we are remembering and acknowledging that it is only through the sacrifice of Jesus’s flesh and blood that we have eternal life.

Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Carla Killough McClafferty