To eat someone’s flesh, to drink someone’s blood … This is the stuff of horror novels and lurid splatter movies. Taken out of context, the words would repulse us as profoundly as they repulsed the Jewish crowds who had gathered to hear the preaching of Jesus. This was hardly what they expected! Not surprisingly, many of Jesus’ listeners were offended by His words.
Some of Israel’s Old Testament neighbors apparently drank blood as a religious act, believing that if they drank the blood of an animal they took into themselves the strength and vitality of that creature. Blood was life, and life was blood. That’s why Israel was forbidden to partake of blood. Life comes from God alone. To seek life from the blood of an animal was idolatrous.
When Jesus spoke of His flesh and blood as the food and drink of eternal life, He was offering Himself to the multitude as the real Source of life. His listeners were very much…
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