Q&A 121
Q. Three things?
A. Yes.
First He repeats what He has been saying thus far for those who thought they heard wrong. "Yes, you heard me right!" And He begins with those solemn words He frequently had recourse to when He had some bottom line to emphasise be it about punishment and justice (Mt 5:26) or the greatest faith He came across in Israel (Mt 8:10) and so on. Here He again has another teaching to emphasise "Truly, truly, I say to you..." He says. Other translations have "Amen, amen, I say to you...". Today in Nairobi we would say, "Aki ya nani nakwambia!" or "You guy! Let me tell you seriously!" or "Walahi!" Others around the world would say "In all sincerity I tell you" or "Listen! I kid you not!" Basically all meaning "It does not get more important or more real or more true than what I'm about to tell you." And with this preface He repeats what He has been saying up until then.
But far from taking the opportunity to clarify or soften His words, He goes a notch higher and makes it more graphic: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man..." Earlier He had insisted on Him being the living bread that we must eat. Bread: something nice and tasty, made precisely for eating. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." (Jn 6:51) Now He changes gears and speaks more of flesh than of bread. His flesh. Human flesh. At the same time, when one of those present - St. John - came round to reporting this incident in his Gospel, he didn't use the ordinary day to day Greek word for "eating" like we would eat at a dinner table. Instead he used the Greek word for "gnawing", "nibbling" or "munching" - "feeding off" - like animals do. "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you gnaw on the flesh of the Son of man..."
Second thing He does is to now include receiving His blood: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." (Jn 6:53-55)
For us 21st century moderns this might not strike us as much. Perhaps we've heard it so many times in a religious or pious context that it strikes us precious little. For a Jew of Jesus' day and age, this was possibly even more disgusting and scandalous than eating flesh. Throughout the Old Testament, Yahweh had strictly forbidden eating flesh with blood in it. Blood was life and all life belonged to Yahweh. You could not appropriate life to yourself. The Jews were consequently understandably bamboozled by this carpenter's words: "Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (Jn 6:60)
Q. I find it curious that indeed, many in the world today ask the very same two questions: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" and "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"
To be continued...
25th October 2016