COLUMN: A bitter pill to swallow - The Tidewater News (2024)

What we get today in John 6: 56-69 was such a bitter pill to swallow. In fact, in this little told story, we’ll see that a great number of Jesus’ followers simply quit on him. They walked away.

Somehow, no one taught us this story in Children’s Sunday School or Vacation Bible School. If they were trying to shape and motivate us to be good disciples and great witnesses in my childhood Church Training hour, the editors were smart enough to dodge this story in our curriculum.

Ever find yourself and another person simply talking past one another? It happens all the time. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had this kind of experience in doctors offices if the medical terminology got too confusing. I’ve had this happen in stores and restaurants where my questions and their lingo didn’t match up.

We’ve all been in a relationship where two people simply didn’t understand each other. Go try and buy a car or a house these days and see if you understand one hundred percent of the lingo and the procedure. We can exchange a lot of words, only to realize that we’re just talking past each other.

We reach the very end of Jesus’ “Bread of Life Discourse,” as scholars love to call it. After this, just about everybody was ready to quit on him.

We hear Jesus’ words through our modern ears and simply don’t get the problem. Those of us who have been in the faith for a while are completely comfortable with the metaphor Jesus used here.

In verses 56-57, for instance, he said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”

Grumbling began. One said, “This is a difficult teaching.” Some murmured among themselves. Jesus perceived their resistance and misunderstanding. So he added to the message by alluding to his soon to come ascension to Heaven. That was a step too far for many. They walked away.

I think for those of us raised inside the Christian faith, words like that don’t faze us much. On a historic and collective level, we’ve had two thousand years to tune our ears to them.

Most of us hear this as symbolic, if we hear it at all, so ubiquitous have these words become for us, especially in churches like this one, which celebrates communion on a monthly basis.

The cup of Christ, the bread of life, the body of Christ, bread, blood, and wine are not new concepts for us. When we hear these words, we think of the Eucharist. We take up the symbolic bread of Jesus’ body and share the cup.

Jesus’ hearers in that day had no frame of reference. They had no idea he was about to demonstrate and then charge them with keeping the ritualized breaking of bread and drinking of wine.

They had no idea what he was about to do in the way of turning over to the authorities his physical body. They still didn’t understand that soon, he would allow himself to be beaten to an extent that can only be described as torture. There was no notion that soon he would stretch out his arms and allow himself to be nailed to a Roman death device on full display to the public.

If you’ve ever heard me say that the real Jesus is a tough sell, mark this story down. It’s tough to share the real Jesus. Mass crowd appeal in the face of our Lord is hard to conjure up because he’ll ask you to believe things that don’t add up.

He’ll ask you to be things that might be risky at times. He’ll ask you to do things that aren’t always comfortable.

Have you ever considered what it might suggest if your experience with Jesus has always been comfortable? Do you realize that if our sense of calling in the name of Christ has never nudged you or I toward discomfort or if we haven’t found our Lord’s gospel to be just a touch off-putting, then I’ve got to wonder if we’ve fully experienced the true essence of Jesus.

Here is the great news of Jesus Christ, even if occasionally the pill seems bitter. He will continue to nudge us and grow us. He will continue to stretch and push us until we look more like him.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.