i Scripture
The ancient church undoubtedly believed the bread and wine shared in memory of Christ’s life and death were indeed the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The earliest record, that of the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth, speaks of participating in the blood of Christ, of the need to receive the Lord’s body discerningly (1 Corinthians 10, 11). In chapter six of The Gospel according to St. John there is a dialogue on the Eucharist and its meaning. The crowd asks Jesus for a sign. They set the scene by making reference to the sign Moses gave the Israelites in the desert. Moses gave them mana. Jesus corrects them. It was God, not Moses, who gave the mana. Jesus then begins to teach them about who he is. He underscores his unity with God. The mana of the desert was a perishable food, and they that ate it perished. He will give an imperishable food, and it will bestow eternal life. He himself is this food come down from heaven. To have this food that satisfies all hunger and quenches all thirst one must “come” to him, and “believe” in him. Jesus emphatically continues that if one would have eternal life, one must eat “the flesh of the Son of Man” and drink his blood. Some declare these words too “difficult to hear.” They walk away from Jesus. Jesus is insistent, but he gives directionality to his claim: “it is the Spirit who gives life.”
We need to make note of certain aspects of John’s gospel.[i] First, the asking for a sign represents an essential part of this work. Indeed, the central section of the text is usually termed “the book of signs.” In it Jesus is found at one major feast day after another, identifies himself with the intent of the feast, and then gives a sign to demonstrate that in him the ancient feast is superceded. Second, while this is the gospel that most strongly underscores the divinity of Jesus, it is also the gospel that equally emphasizes the incarnate nature of that divinity. Jesus goes about demonstrably self-assured that he and the Father are one. He keeps referring to himself by uttering “I am” together with some descriptor—the gate, the good shepherd, the way, the vine. He is aware that his co-religionists will see in that an allusion, sometimes a blasphemous allusion, to the not-to-be-pronounced divine name, “I AM.” At the same time we find a Jesus who can be filled with sympathy, empathy, tears, anger, hubris. Third, the construction of this gospel is a most layered and complex weave. One may see it as an intricate lace-work full of minute but essential cross-stiches and loops that form an organic whole. It is also the most Hebraic text, and the most poetic. Unlike the narrative form of the other gospels, here we find the parallel lines and inverted series of parallels characteristic of Hebrew poetry (Cf: Psalms). Thus we hear that one must “come” to Jesus and then “believe” in Jesus. But how especially in this work where everything is about God-in-Jesus coming to man does one “come” to Jesus? The two words must be understood as receiving him who is come, accepting him, and as such believing in him. The two words are parallels, a nuance-rich decoupling of a single action. Fourth, unlike other texts in Christian scripture, the gospel uses the word flesh not body. Neither ancient Hebrew nor Aramaic have a specific word for body. Thus we are closer to the terminology Aramaic speaking Jesus himself would have used. There are possibly here several things going on at once—itself a characteristic of this gospel. As noted above, throughout the gospel there is an intent to underscore the tangible physicality of the incarnation of God. This in part may have been to counter Docetism, an early heresy that over-emphasized the divinity of Jesus and claimed he was not really a human being, but merely seemed to be so. Fifth, that some took the command to eat flesh and drink blood literally, the response of labelling such “difficult” to hear and so giving up on Jesus seems reasonable, morally responsible even. Scripture teaches that to eat someone’s flesh is a disgraceful act brimming with the demonic (Psalms 27:2, Ezechiel 39:17, Zachariah 11:9). To drink blood is forbidden by God (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 3:17, Acts 15:20). Yet, Jesus is not encouraging cannibalism. He is speaking about something spiritual, “the Spirit gives life.” It is here that the dialogue reaches its climax. God and Jesus form a unity. They are one. That unity is and always has been in and through the Spirit. The incarnation of God is by the power of the Spirit. As the theology of the Spirit develops through the centuries we can see how richly it grows out of the Johannine vision of the unity of the Godhead bounded in the Spirit, and how the church is by that same Spirit bounded to the Godhead. The Spirit is the bond of union. Those who partake of the life, the flesh and blood, of Jesus participate in the incarnate life of Jesus in his unbreakable and eternal oneness with God—in the power of the Spirit. Sixth, if we may augment the above with that which Paul has to say to the Corinthians, we have—in the power of the Spirit who is invoked over the gifts of the body and blood—a participation in the life of Jesus who is at once both God and man. Thus, as Paul has it, every celebration of the Eucharist is a proclamation of Christ incarnate until he comes again in glory. Eucharist is the precursor of Parousia. If we may wander off to Aristotelean thought for the moment, it becomes the final cause of history. It is teleological. In Christian terms it is eschatological. It stands on the edge of history, and its grace floods back into history and changes history. It is hence redemptive.
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