Daily Java: Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:53-54)
This is one of the weirdest thing Jesus said in all his teaching.
Unless you eat him and drink his blood you cannot live. That is something that is downright hard to accept.
Jesus had just gotten through feeding 5000 people with five small barley loaves and two small fish (John 6:9) taken from a little boy’s stash.
Then he displayed his power to his apostles by walking on the water in a storm.
They knew his power and all those around him did too. The crowds hung around Jesus just waiting for the next miracle, thinking about the next meal Jesus would provide, the next wonder he would show them. They thought he was great.
But they thought he was great because he was powerful, not because he was the Son of God. They were ready to accept him, not because they were looking for the power of God, but because they were looking for the power of miracles.
Jesus finally turned to them and said that they had to eat and drink him in order to be pleasing to God. The crowd looked at him and said, Yuck! That is gross. We don’t want to listen to this.
And a lot of them left him.
He asks his apostles what they thought. Were they going to leave him too? His own apostles were baffled, but their response was, Where in the world would we go? You’re the one we follow.
It is easy to follow Jesus when everything is going great, when miracles abound, and blessings flow. It is hard to follow him when things get hard.
Jesus said that in order to be a real follower of his, we have to take him into us like food or drink, make him part of us in such a way that we follow him anyway.
Miracles or no, he is my Savior. And I will follow him.
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