The Message of the Loves Week Three: Eat my Flesh and Drink my Blood

Unedited Transcript Follows:

God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. Well, here we are in the climax of Jesus Bread of Life discourse. We've been going through his brighter life discourse for the last two weeks now. And now we're at the climax. Um and Jesus opens us up by giving actually the harder.

It's interesting. Maybe, the hardest word that you heard from him was unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. You have no life in you or at least, it would have been hard for them to hear. At that time because they would have no idea what he was talking about, but The hardest word that Jesus gives us.

Um, is actually right at the beginning. Um he he it's really the basis for all that he has to say about communion about all that he has to say about our Reliance on him. So, What we see here is we we see his like, his default position as he describes people.

What's their default position that they kind of sit in? And then he talks about the way to kind of the way to move toward healing. From that default position. And then talks about some of the effects of the meal that he gives us. So we'll we'll start by just looking at that default position, he says you have no life in you.

That's our default position. So that's the main clause for you nerds out there. So he gives a subordinate clause, unless you eat the Flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, but the main Clause is you have no life in you. He's describing. A reality about us.

That we have no life. In us. Now we've talked about this, some already. This is like Foundational to the bread of life discourse. That's why we've talked about it kind of a lot that this isn't even something that Is not true about us. Before we sinned before before we sinned, we still had no life in us.

Meaning that we had no life. That wasn't derived, we have nothing. Um, we have nothing that isn't a gift to us. Every breath is a gift. That's true of human beings. Even without sin. Right. It's what separates Creator from creation. It's the idea of contingency Only one thing that exists is not contingent.

And that is God. God is the only thing that exists that doesn't derive existence from someone else, right? So God exists, just as he is. Everything else is made by God and derives its existence from him including people. So what makes the Triune God of Christianity completely and utterly distinct from you?

And I Is that he is uncreated, and he is not contingent and we are created and contingent. So, When people look at the language in the scriptures that says, that that you are like God, so you'll become like gods. Always understand scripture means something different by God. When they talk about the God, who is not created and who has always been and who exists apart from any contingency, then when he talks about everyone else, and that we can participate in the divine nature, we can be invited in to this immortality, but it's a gift to us.

It's not something we have by Nature. So we have no life apart from what is derived from God? With sin. And this is true, even before there was sin with sin, the situation worsens. Cuz we have no life apart from what is derived by God, but here's the deal that God that gives us life.

We have rebelled against him and chosen wickedness and chosen to use the life. He gave us as a gift and use that life to rebel against him. Uh-Oh, right. The only one that we have any hope, not only. Uh, for eternal life and all the blessings that come but just for life itself.

We've rebelled against him. We've used the life. He gave us as a gift. To rebel against him. And that's our situation. So, it creates a problem for us. Jesus told us at the beginning of this of this sermon. Stop laboring for food, that perishes. But labor for food that endures to eternal life.

Remember that? And yet. We are people who are perishing. We're a perishing people. What good is food that endures to eternal life to a perishing person? It if I'm going to die. I'm a perishing person. It does be no good to eat some magic food, right? So so what good is it if we're giving out food to a bunch of mortal people that's supposed to endure to eternal life?

And that's why Jesus tells so he gives it. I mean, he gives like pretty strong words. Might be hard to hear the words, you have no life in you. That's what he tells us. You and I we have no life in ourselves. But he tells us a way toward healing from that situation.

And the way toward healing. That'd be interesting. Depending on what tradition you found yourself in growing up, but the way toward healing According to Jesus, here is faithful participation in the Eucharist. Wait, what? The way toward healing from the that condition where we have no life in us is faithful participation in the Eucharist Proverbs 9 which we read.

Also today gives us a type of the Eucharist. It's pointing a type is a Biblical thing that's pointing towards something else. So there's a real reality. There's there's a reality being described in Proverbs 9 but it's pointing towards something else. Eucharist hadn't been given yet, right? As a gift and yet Wisdom, who is a type of Christ.

Giving offering a banquet of Bread and Wine. And somehow eating this Feast leads us. According to Lady, wisdom to gain Insight that we receive something we receive Insight as we eat this Feast of Bread and Wine. Swinging forward. To something and to the Eucharist to this meal, that Jesus would give us thousands of years later Everything about this passage.

Is obviously Eucharistic. When we say that though, when we say that, the only way toward life is faithful participation. In the Eucharist, it's important to recognize the Eucharist isn't this Standalone meal? It's a part of a life of following Jesus. So you might wonder why we would require baptism in the name of the Trinity before we give access to the Lord's table, right?

You hear me every Sunday? Say this meal is open to all Christians who have been baptized in the name of the Trinity. What are we doing there? It's not saying, do this magical thing before you can do this magical thing, right? It's not just putting the order of magical things in line.

It's saying, baptism is our entrance into the household of God and it's saying this meal is a part of a holistic, reality of a of participation in Christ. It's a this meal is offered to the converted. This meal is offered to the people who are a part of the household of God.

This meal is offered to those of us who are Christians. Who are walking with Christ. And baptism is nothing more nothing less than an initiation into the household of God. So the Ukraine, so when we say faithful participation in the Eucharist is the way toward healing from the fact that we have no life in It's important to recognize.

This is a holistic participation in worship and communal life with and in Christ. And in his Some like Traditions, I grew up in might not want to see the language as referring to the Eucharist here. Right. Um, The there's the real, the main reason they uh there's there's a main reason that they're not saying but the reason that they'll give that they'll say is from the text Um, in this passage is the the communion meal hasn't been given to the people yet.

Okay, they'll say like, Here. How could he be talking about communion when he hasn't given them the meal communion, right? Um, There's several reasons. What we have to see this as Eucharistic. Um, the two reasons we'll talk about is Is there's this use of this participle, trogon So trogon, is this, he changes from like the lest graphic verb for eating fagete, unless you eat, um, he changes to this other verb trogon and the big difference between that is it's like super graphic.

So think of it like, like, it's like we have the, we have different verbs for eating, right? We have like eating and then we have like nine, right? Right? Like and so like when you think of like how someone eats a steak, If they didn't even want to cut it off the bone, right, if they just like grabbed the steak and I got vegetarians in the front row.

Sorry. If I'm making enough. Yeah, they're just grabbing the steak and they're just, ah, you know, like like they don't even want to cut it off the bone, there's gnawing on it right? Uh, like it's that type of language that Jesus is using the the one who gnaws on my flesh and drinks, my blood has life in him.

Language and not and not language that lead us to say, oh, he means that they like, think about Jesus, right? Like like, he's he's using really graphic language here to say, you gotta like, no, you're it's about what you do with the body. Uh, b dag, which is like, which is a lexicon of, of all the Greek words that you could imagine and many that you couldn't Um, their quote here is John uses it to offset any Tendencies to spiritualize the concept, so that nothing physical remains in it.

In what many hold to be language of the Lord's Supper. So he's saying like the reason he's using such a graphic word is to tell us this isn't just like some invisible reality, like you're gonna eat something. And you're not gonna like, just eat it in your heart, you're gonna eat something, and you're gonna drink something.

The other reason that you have to see this is Eucharistic Is that you have to remember the original readers of John's gospel. So, Saint John's gospel is the latest of the gospels, okay? It's the latest one that is written. It was written. Community of Christians already gathered. They got together.

We know what they did when they gathered to they got together. They Read from the scriptures, they proclaimed the gospel, they ate bread and drank wine that they believed was the body and blood of Jesus. When John writes his gospel. This is the community. He's writing to, they're already doing this.

There's absolutely no way that anyone would have thought of anything different when Jesus says, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, then they would have said, oh yeah, that's what we do. Every time when we say this is my body, this is my blood and then we eat that.

So that that's what everyone would have thought of that's and which is why every Church father that I can find a quote on that. Wasn't like In in the last hundred years, just talks about how this is communion like this is talking about communion because it it really clearly.

Language about eating flesh and drinking blood. That it's Eucharistic. So it's it's all really obvious. We might not need to say it, but the reason that people don't always want to see this is referring to communion when they read it. Is that Jesus teaches? That faithful participation in the Eucharist is a normative requirement.

For receiving eternal life. It's what he teaches here unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. It's why question 123 in our catechism. Says that the Eucharist is generally necessary for salvation. Baptism in the Eucharist. Are the two that are generally necessary for salvation.

Now listen, I took vows Uh, that I would teach nothing as necessary for salvation, except what can be proved from Holy Scripture. And yet I'm saying, this is generally necessary for salvation. Why do we say generally? Because God can do what he wants, he can save whoever he wants, he can do, he can do whatever he's in charge here.

So, uh, if he wants to save someone, he can do it. However, he wants. But generally, People who are saved are baptized and they are Faithfully participating. In the Eucharist. And, It's what Jesus is teaching here. It's why we teach that Couple caveats. The Eucharist assumes atonement. It's important to recognize that so it's not the Eucharist isn't, like I said, it's not this Standalone thing.

But but the Eucharist isn't a thing except because of what Jesus did on the cross, The Eucharist is a sign pointing us toward and appropriating the gift, that Jesus gave us on the cross, right? So, it assumes That Jesus died for our sins. It's just the way that Jesus has chosen to Give us that gift and to appropriate it to us.

Also, an important caveat is that Faithful participation in the Eucharist is not a work. Meant to inherit like to Merit eternal life you and I can't do a single thing to Merit eternal life. Okay, like Really Faithfully participating in the Eucharist gives you no merit. To receive eternal life.

You can't earn anything from God. You can't like we can't take a single step toward God that he doesn't. Begin and initiate for us. So this isn't a gift to Merit baptism either. We don't do Works to Merit eternal life. What we do is we participate in this meal that Jesus gave us as because this is the way that he's chosen to give that gift to us.

Okay. It's like if you like, if you If you gave your kid a car on their 16th birthday, Right. They'd have to go out and start the car, right? Right, it doesn't mean they like merited it But what if they said, oh man I can't do a work or else I'm trying to earn it so I'm not going to start the call.

Would they go anywhere? No, right? So what they do is they go and they receive the gift in the way that you intended them to receive it which is by getting in the car, starting it and driving, okay? This is how this is, how the Eucharist works, is how the sacraments works about baptism works.

Well, we're not meriting anything, but what we're doing is we're saying, okay, I'm going to receive this gift in the way that you've given me to receive it and the way that you've intended me to receive it, right? You know, Ignatius of Antioch right? After the New Testament was written.

He wrote. He called the Eucharist, the medicine of immortality. It's what he called communion. The medicine of immortality. Like, And I'm telling this is before anyone knew that they were allowed to or supposed to fight about this stuff guys. This is like like they were no one was fighting about it.

This everyone was just like yeah that's what it is. Yeah medicine. Immortality Jesus said unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you so that's it. So we are we who are in Christ, eat and drink, Jesus flesh, and Blood by a miracle of him giving that to us.

And this is a means of Grace. Meaning it's the way that God has chosen to apply the gift of Grace to our lives. What happens when we Faithfully participate in the Eucharist there? Few effects. We'll talk about one is resurrection. That's verse 54. So just as a language he's I will raise him up on the last day, right?

Just as the language of the Eucharist shouldn't be just spiritualized and and talked about as if it does it. There's nothing physical about it. Salvation should not be spiritualized in such a way that there's nothing physical about. It. Our bodies are raised up. We eat the bread with our bodies, that same body that we eat the bread with and drink the wine with is raised up that same body.

A lot of confusion in our day and age around the gospel, is our tendency to spiritualize salvation or think it's about this invisible place. I float away without my body to Cloud place and there's heart music playing. Jesus is gonna undo death. Pulling us out of a grave. That's that's the end of our story.

So I gave us a physical meal to tell us about it, right? Also, what happens when we Faithfully participate in the Eucharist is we have indwelling. He Jesus says, in verse 56, whoever feeds on My Flesh and drinks. My blood abides in me and I in him. Biting is a really important Concept.

In John, if you think like John 15, I am the vine. You're the branches. The one who abides in me bears fruit, right? For John. That's the purpose of why the word became flesh and Tabernacled Among Us. Is that he could be with us. And in. Jesus took on flesh because he wants to be United with us even though we rebelled against him and this happens beautifully in the Eucharist when we receive his body and blood And we ingest.

The Son of God. And then we digest the Son of God. Unified with him, one with him, United with him. Inseparably.

In the Eucharist, we nurture that Union with Jesus. We also participate in the Divine Life in 57, in verse 57. Jesus talks about how just as he participates in life with the father. We participate. We're invited in to the Divine Life. What Saint Peter calls becoming partakers of the divine nature?

We're invited into sharing life with him.

Because of our deep abiding with Jesus, by virtue of the Union, he has with the father and the spirit. We're pulled into Union with the Trinity. When we participate with him in worship, That's we already. Pray all this. Every Sunday, when we pray the prayer of humble access, right?

None of this is surprising to us because we always pray grant us therefore gracious Lord. So to eat the Flesh of your dear son, Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood. That our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most, precious blood, and that we may ever more dwell in him, and he in us right.

Pray that every week, And all of this is made available to us in this meal. That we are about to eat. It's why it's normative for us to do that weekly. It's why it's normative for even lay people, you know, do you realize the promises we make as lay people?

Um, is that we will worship the Lord on the on every Lord's day unless reasonably hindered That's what we promised. Why do we say that? Because we say the things we're doing, here are so important that we need to do it. We need to do it over and over.

We need to come back. Reaffirm our faith reunite with Jesus. Come receive the gifts. He's given us. It's why it's important for us to do it weekly. It's why we do it here weekly and it's why To the people of God were intentional about gathering weekly. So we're at the climax of the branolife discourse here, Jesus gives us that difficult truth.

We have no life in We don't have life in ourselves. Not only are we completely reliant on God for life. We have rebelled against the only one who can give us life And we've earned a death sentence, there's no way out. But he gives us the treatment plan. It's a strange treatment plan.

The treatment plan is a meal. It's a meal where ordinary Bread and Wine. Miraculously, give us the Flesh and blood of Jesus. It's not a meal. We eat to Garner favor with God, but instead is God's mean means of giving his favor to us. When we receive this meal in faith, we receive Resurrection Life, as we feed on the Flesh of the Risen Lord.

We start walking toward Resurrection Life. We also receive Union with Jesus. We're made one with Christ. We're invited into the life of the Trinity. So today, let us eat the Flesh of Jesus and drink his blood. Let us be United with him and walk with him and receive the gift of eternal life.