Eucharist -- Is It Cannibalism? Part 5.
Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no
life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I
will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:53-54) Jesus further asserts that
this new manna He will give is “real food” and “real drink” (6:55, per the Greek). The emphasis of the wording is on the realism: real
food, real eating. Not mere spiritual participation.
The reality is even more apparent when we
observe that the Greek word for usual “eating” used in verse 53 is replaced in
verse 54 with the graphic word for chewing, gnawing, or consuming. Jesus uses
this same graphic word when He says, “He who chews My flesh and drinks My blood
abides in Me, and I in him” (6:56). Now in John 15 Jesus speaks of Himself
being “the vine” and a disciple being a “branch” which can only bear “fruit” if
he “abides” or “remains” in Jesus, so we must “abide in” Him (Jn 15:4-10). Does
Jesus define what He means by this “abiding”? Yes. right here in John 6:56: “He
who chews My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” That’s how
we abide in Jesus and come to bear fruit.
Jesus continues: “He who chews Me will
live because of Me” (6:57). The graphic “chew” is especially startling here
because Jesus is comparing His eternal life of union with God the Father in the
Blessed Trinity with the promised eternal life for the one who “chews” on Him:
“I live because of the Father, so he who chews Me will live because of Me”
(6:57).
But wait. Doesn’t the Old Testament speak
of eating and drinking as a metaphor for believing a teaching? Why be so
graphic as “chewing”?
Well, let’s see. The clearest OT image for
“eating flesh” and “drinking blood” is when Ezekiel is prophetically told to
speak to birds and beasts to come to “a great sacrificial feast” in which they
are to “eat flesh and drink blood.” (Ezek 39:17-18; cf., also Ps 27:2; Zech9:15; 11:9). But this, and the similar OT expressions, actually refer to doing
violence to a person, even killing him. There is no reference to just believing.
This OT language of “eating flesh” and “drinking blood” may be precisely why
Jesus uses it in reference to the Holy Eucharist which is a memorial of the
violence done to Him as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world.
Consider what Jesus tells Nicodemus: “If I
have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I
tell you heavenly things?” (Jn 3:12.) In Jesus’ discourse He has been speaking of
“heavenly things” – now specifically in reference to His future ascension when the
Son of man’s atoning sacrifice is to be accepted by the Father, making possible
for mankind to share in Christ’s resurrected “life” through the “Spirit.” The
“earthly things” are the perishable “flesh” which is of “no avail” without the “Spirit”
(cf., Ezek 37:8, bones with flesh, but still no life without the Spirit).
So once again Jesus is turning people away from a cannibalistic interpretation of His words. He is not speaking of earthly, perishable things, not earthly flesh. He is speaking of heavenly realities: His resurrected, Spirit-filled Body and Blood which give eternal life to mankind.
Dibby Allan Green
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.