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Abiding in Jesus

Sermon 18 August

By Rev Prince Devanandan

Abiding in Jesus
Proverbs 9:1-6
John 6:51-58

Jesus said, ‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.’ Jesus makes it a precondition to eat his flesh and drink his blood for people to abide in him and for him to abide in people. We belonging to the Anglican Church participate in the Holy Communion regularly. It is our abiding in Jesus as we receive his flesh and blood at communion.

However, this is not a matter for people to understand what Jesus said. The immediate reaction was, the Jews disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” We can understand the Jews who asked this question and the people, particularly Christians of different denominations. Some among us may have the same question.

They struggle with what Jesus meant by offering bread as his flesh for the life of the world. The last two Sundays’ gospel readings were about Jesus the bread of life and the bread which came down from heaven. In today’s gospel Jesus takes it to another level, that is to offer his flesh and blood for the abiding of one in Jesus and for Jesus to abide in that one.

The shift towards eating his ‘flesh’ and drinking his ‘blood’ strains to limit our ability to understand and respond. For Jews the most difficult part is to drink one’s blood. According to the law of Judaism, drinking blood is forbidden because of the belief of life is in the blood. We know excessive bleeding is fatal. Only God has power over the blood be it of human beings or of animals.

This is the reason for slaughtering the sheep or a bull and drain the blood became a rule. The Muslims observe it to the letter, by which the meat is known to be halal which means permissible. If not, it is forbidden to eat. Animals improperly slaughtered or dead before slaughtering is forbidden. Jews too observe the same. Drinking blood is incomprehensible for them.

Jesus’ new teaching has parallels in the Old Testament reading from Proverbs.

“Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.” I don’t know why wisdom is described as a woman in a patriarchal society. However, the point here that resonates with Jesus teaching is, meat and wine and setting wisdom’s table.

Then she calls “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Eating the bread and drinking the wine of wisdom is for a person to live and walk in the way of knowledge.

Barbara Reid, a Dominican Sister specialised in Biblical Studies says, “It is in this likeness to a woman that we may find one way to understand Jesus’ words in John 6:51-58.” Reid explains, just as a mother gives her very flesh and blood to nurture a new life carried within her, and then continues to feed the child from her own body after the baby is born, Jesus nourishes with his very self all who are born to new life through him. John 1:4 says, “… in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

Similar to the union of mother and child while the child dwells in the womb, so Jesus promises “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.”

The life that results is eternal. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. The writer of John’s gospel leads the conversation to indicate later that the death of Jesus’ earthly body is the birth of new life to all.

The question of how he can give his flesh for us to eat is presented in the institution of the Holy Eucharist. When we receive the bread and wine, we receive Jesus’ flesh and blood. It is more to imply who Jesus is rather than how can he. By eating his flesh and drinking his blood we abide in him, and he is us.