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“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” — John 6:51 NRS

The Gospel of John is often difficult to understand. Like the words of the ancient prophets in the Old Testament, the sentence structure, analogies and repetitive language is hard on our ears and our brains. John’s Gospel is a work rooted more in the culture of “Eastern” thoughts and literature and therefore different from the more “Western” books found in the New Testament. John is not communicating facts. 

Rather he is painting three-dimensional images. They are factual, yet John tries to help us feel and see God as much more than a simple snap shot. John wants us to know how much more than “prophet” Jesus is. The Sadducees and Pharisees seem to miss this. They are looking to categorize something humans cannot lock into a category. 

Let us not be too hard on the Sadducees and Pharisees. They are like most of us, human. As humans, we are taught to see new things and compare them to well known, and/or common things. It is how we learn and help others to understand this “new thing”. However, if our good Sadducees and Pharisees had really opened their minds a bit, they would understand how different Jesus was.

Too often, we make the same mistake. We often think of this as words that are about the bread from our “Communion” services. While it has some common meanings, it is still much more. Perhaps we should start trying to understand this passage by remembering the old saying that, “you are what you eat”. In doing so we too could avoid being like the naysayers of Jesus’ time. 

Jesus has come to provide a totally new experience in our relationship with God, Father, Son and Spirit. Jesus is here to show us that we can personally commune with God. We no longer have to go through others to speak to, listen to, to laugh with and cry with God. The doors of the Temple have been flung open. Jesus is telling everyone that God has made a new thing and we can commune directly with God.

In doing this, we receive all that we need for a wonderful worship filled life.

Keith Leach is Pastor of College Church and College Chaplain at Hampden-Sydney College. He can be reached at kleach@hsc.edu.