There are several things that we all need in order to physically live. We all need oxygen to breathe, along with food and water. A person can go about three weeks without food before they will die. The longest one can live without water is about three to four days, less if one is in direct sunlight. It’s only a few minutes before one dies without oxygen.
How about eternal life? What does one need to have eternal life? The Apostle John has recorded here in our passage some words of Jesus that speak of eternal life. As the Son of God, and the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus would know about what is essential to have eternal life. Let’s look at what He has said, and see what we can learn.
Jesus said here in this passage some rather shocking things that don’t really make sense on the surface. One thing He said was that one must eat His flesh and drink His blood, and they will have eternal life. What can that mean? No one could actually come up to Jesus and physically take a bite of His flesh, or drink a cup of His blood right there that day.
The idea of drinking blood and eating flesh was totally repugnant, especially to devout Jews. It was strictly forbidden in the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 17:10-11). Blood is a vital part of the human body. If someone loses enough blood, they die. If poison, germs, or bacteria get into the blood, one gets sick, and could also die. Blood is an element of life. Jesus is saying that His life has to become our own.
Just as eating and drinking are essential for physical life, so belief in Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross is necessary for eternal life. Later Jesus would speak of partaking of His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25). The Apostle Paul also spoke of this when he repeated the Lord’s command to commemorate the Lord’s Supper in the Church (I Carinthians 11:23-26).
Today as we gather in our churches and celebrate the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist as believers, we know that Jesus is there, is truly present with us. As believers we have accepted the giving of His body and the shedding of His blood on the cross for us.
Many people who heard this when Jesus spoke were offended and would not accept His message. Many of them at this time did not want to accept a Messiah who would die. They could not, and would not accept or see the spiritual significance and truth behind Jesus’s statements.
Most everyone does what they can to have enough food and water every day. Are we that careful about eternal life? Have we accepted Jesus’s death, the giving of His body and blood, for ourselves?
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