Queen Anne 

At the time, I had had no experience with premature babies, so I was very surprised that quite often their bodies were pretty hairy, and I had never seen a hairy baby.  And I mean hairy, hair all over the back and the arms and sometimes even the legs.  Initially, I thought of it as gross.  Probably a typical thought for a teenager seeing something unexpected, and of course, at the time, I did not know that the babies would shed this hair as they got older, usually in a few months.

It took me some time, but eventually I got over my idea of how babies should look, and I got to the point where I could see nothing but beauty in each and every one of those infants as they struggled to breathe, as they fought to live.  I could see each of them as a beautiful gift of life, even though, at first glance, the packaging was not all that attractive.  In fact, initially, that package seemed gross.

We have a similar situation in our text this morning.  Jesus is explaining to the crowd that has been following him that he is something special.  He calls himself the bread of life.  He calls himself the bread of heaven.  He tells the people that just as God fed the early Israelites in the desert with manna from heaven, that now, He, Jesus is going to feed the people.

Now you might expect Jesus to say that he is going to feed the people with more bread, remember, he has just fed the 5000 with a few loaves and two fish.  But Jesus surprises the people.  He doesn’t say he is going to feed the people with bread, he says he is the bread.  In fact, we get a very explicit description of Jesus as living bread. 

Jesus says,  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...For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink...and those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 
 
Now I don’t know about you, but coming from a place where I initially considered the idea of a hairy baby as gross, this passage is totally over the top.

I mean, Jesus is telling the people that his flesh is real food and his blood is real drink. He tells them that for eternal life, for true life, they must feed on him. 

Truthfully, this does sound incredibly gross. In fact, people of the time also thought that it sounded gross, particularly those who challenged the early Christians.  Because of these words, many critics of the early church accused the followers of Christ of being cannibalistic because people did not understand what Jesus meant when he said drink my blood and eat my flesh.  This idea of cannibalism was yet another way in which the early community of Christ was persecuted.

These words of course, about drinking the blood and eating the flesh point us to the sacrament of communion where each week we share the loaf of bread and the cup of juice as we remember the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ and we ask for the blessing by the Holy Spirit and we seek to be nourished by the meal so that we can go into the world to do God’s will.

When we hear these explicit and even bold words of Jesus to eat and drink the body and blood, we understand the words in the context of Holy Communion.    We understand that Jesus is talking about more than physical needs.  Jesus is talking about ingesting and digesting him to the extent that our lives change from the inside out.

While we might be repulsed by these graphic words of eating flesh and drinking blood, we need to be reminded our Lord can take that which seems repulsive and make it into something good.  We have seen it done; we know this to be true because each week we worship in front of this empty cross.  This cross was once the symbol of crucifixion; the most horrible instrument of death that the Romans could develop.  We worship in front of this cross where our Lord Jesus was executed.  But we know that our Lord defeated this horrible death on the cross.  Christ has died.  Christ has risen.  Christ will come again.

Right now, Christ is urging us to take him into every part of our bodies.  To breathe him in like air.  To be nourished by him as we are nourished by food.  Christ wants to be our lifeblood.  And this may mean a radical change in our lives. 

When we take Christ into every part of our body, then we know that though our flesh still urges us to sin, we truly abide in Jesus as Jesus abides in us. 

The Spirit of Jesus in us leads us away from the ugliness and grossness of our sin and temptation and forgives us when we confess our transgressions, but Jesus wants to be more than counselor and friend to us.  Jesus wants us to embody the goodness that he embodies.  Jesus wants to fill us up with him, so that his Spirit can act in us and through us to bless the world around us.

It is said that you are what you eat.  If this is true, then Christ wants us to eat, to ingest and digest the Word so that we might become imitators of the one we follow.  If we are what we eat, and we eat Christ, then it follows that the words that we say and the actions that we do are also of Christ.  It follows that our words and our actions encourage one another and build up the body.  If Jesus is the food of our bodies, then all that we say and do are manifestations of the love and grace of Christ; all that we say and do are works of service and charity.

The sacrament of Communion is about coming together to be nourished before being sent out.  It is the meal that connects us.  When we partake in the bread and cup we are called to share the energy, the enthusiasm, the passion, and the gospel that we experience in that moment with the whole world. In the body and blood we find community, peace, justice and love.  Let us not be put off by the grossness of the body and blood.  Let’s remember that our Lord can take that which seems repulsive and make it into something good.  Remember, we have seen it done. 

Holy, holy, holy Lord.  God of power and might.  Heaven and earth are full of your glory and your victory.  Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.  Hosanna in the highest.  Amen.