A Radical “Unless” 

"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” There is no other way to look at it. Jesus says, “unless”. This is not negotiable. It is not open to interpretation. If we want his life within us, if we want to spend eternity with him, we must eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. And like many of the Jews of Jesus’s time, we may also say, “What? How? This is too far!”

Jesus meant what he said. When we partake in communion, we take into our body and soul, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. That is a pretty big deal and we need to spend the time and energy to wrestle with that. The flesh of the Son of Man is a reference to the suffering of Jesus, suffering which is the price for integrity. When we follow Jesus, when we do as he says and approach the altar to eat his flesh, to drink his blood, it shouldn’t be a passive reception. We need to embrace wholeheartedly what it means to become one with Jesus. We need to ask to see with his eyes, hear with his ears, speak with his tongue and, most of all, to love with his heart. 

We embrace his way of suffering. As we say yes to Jesus, when we declare “Amen” to the person who offers us the Body of Christ, we are not simply saying thank you. We have to engage our will. We have to acknowledge that God is God and we are not. It is an act of humility as we give Jesus access to the core of our being - we want him to be active, to mold it, sculpt it, change it - change us from the inside out. 

I heard a bishop suggest once that each and every Christian should spend time with John 6. A quick read through will take under 10 minutes. But we should not do this quickly. We need to engage with this passage of Scripture. We need to mull it over in our minds, to engage willingly and truly hear what Jesus has to say. 

Lord Jesus, open my mind and heart. Help me to believe what you say, even the hard parts. When I meet you in the Eucharist, radically change me from the inside out, so that I truly have your life within me. Amen.

By Sheryl O'Connor