John 6:53-56 53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, 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 them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
Jesus said in verses 32-33: 32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Jesus declared He was the bread that gave life! We wasn’t speaking about a physical hunger. It was about a far greater spiritual need that could only be met by believing in Jesus. The miracles Jesus was performing weren’t meant to just amaze people or to relieve people of some momentary suffering, but they were to point to His Divinity, to His assignment, to authenticate that He was the Son of God, sent by the Heavenly Father, to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world so that all who take Him in would receive eternal life.
Well, the crowd couldn’t handle the thought that Jesus had come down from heaven. They knew Him to be the son of Joseph and Mary. Some of them had grown up with Jesus. It didn’t compute that He had a Divine origin. Jesus went on to say, 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread (I think He was pointing to Himself here) that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Jesus continued to teach. They continued to not get what He was saying. They wanted a miracle for a moment. He wanted to give them eternal life. Verse 66 says, “
66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”
They cut ties with Jesus. They no longer followed Him. There was a disconnect and a departure from Jesus because He didn’t fit their profile. They wanted political liberation. He wanted so much more for them than temporary reprieve from Rome. They wanted Jesus on their terms. He wanted to give them eternal life, life that would begin by “eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood.”
What is meant by that statement? It means that Jesus was going to give His flesh and His blood, His very life, so that they could live a new kind of life. It means that by faith and because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we can choose to take “the all” of Jesus into “the all” of us. Jesus went all in for us, so we could take Him fully into our hearts and lives.
But they wanted loaves of bread. They wanted a new king. They just wanted an easier, more comfortable “now.” They wanted to be entertained and wowed by miracles.
It was at this point that Jesus asked His question. 67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
This was a defining moment for the 12. Many follow Jesus as fans. Sadly, fewer come to truly know Him for Who He is. Look at Peter’s response. 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
This is one of the most triumphant Scriptures! “We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” Listen, when you truly come to believe in Jesus as the Bread sent from Heaven, as the Messiah, as the Holy One of God, as the One who is qualified to restore our lives and to give eternal life to all who come to Him in faith, you won’t want to follow any other way or any other person and you want to take Him up on His offer to fully take Him in.
Peter spoke on behalf of the rest. He said, “We are in! We want all You have to offer, Jesus. We believe in You not just because of the miracles, but we believe in you because we have placed our trust in You, and we have walked with You, and we know Who You are . Jesus, we want you for more than a miracle or a monarch. We want YOU! And we want to eat of your flesh and drink of your blood, not in a true, physical sense, of course, but we want to take “the all” of You into “the all” of us.
What have you come to believe and know about Jesus? And why are you following Him, and to what extent are you following Him? Do we just want Jesus to make our lives better or do we want Jesus? He called Himself, “Bread.” How many of you love bread?
Honestly, there are so many benefits of bread. Bread has a wide range of vitamins and minerals including B group vitamins such as B1 and B3 which are important for releasing energy from food and maintaining healthy skin, eyes, and nails. White bread is fortified with calcium which helps us maintain healthy bones and teeth. Some breads are important sources of fiber which keep our digestive system healthy and help control blood sugar and cholesterol levels and make us feel full for longer. Bread contains surprisingly high amounts of proteins and zinc. It is also considered essential during pregnancy.
But y’all, if I don’t ingest the bread and digest the bread, it won’t do me any good. What I am trying to say is, I could be around bread all day long and could know enough bread facts to win an entire Jeopardy category, but if I refused to receive it on the inside of me, I could starve to death. Until I eat the bread, it won’t benefit me. I can’t be spiritually fed by Jesus, nourished by Jesus, and sustained by Jesus if I hold Him to an outside admiration. He must be taken in.
Why did Jesus say we are to eat and drink of His sacrifice? Because eating and drinking are acts of reception. Our faith and belief in Jesus and what He can do cannot be rightly compared with admiring Him or knowing about Him or getting a miracle from Him. We have to partake of Him, fully, deeply, to be able to experience the satisfaction and thrill that come from knowing Him on the inside.
Nothing will satisfy our hunger and bring us spiritual life except actually eating the bread. And Jesus said, “He who eats this bread will live forever.”
This was a defining moment for Peter and the others. Jesus asked, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Peter victoriously declared that he had settled where real life was found. There was nowhere else, there was nothing else that could give life like Jesus.
What if this is supposed to be a defining moment in your life and faith? What if the turnaround you need for your life rests solely on how you answer this question? What if the breakthrough you need has been out of reach because you have hung around with the Bread of Life but have never truly taken it in? How you answer the question Jesus is asking you just now will determine what you can receive from Him, and I promise you, in this moment, He wants to give His all to you. You simply have to believe and receive it.
Don’t relegate Jesus to an outside experience. Take Him in, all of Him in, on the inside and watch Him not only provide for you, but watch Him transform you from the inside out.
