There was a sacred moment today. One of those moments that only comes when you least expect and lasts for an instant and yet, it rings in your ears long after the revelation hits your spirit…

Understated

yet violently loud,

Maybe obvious

& yet

like understanding a 語言 {language} for the first time.

As I stood at the altar of a beautiful tiny church that I call one of my homes, I was readying myself to receive the communion and then…there it was.

A week or so ago during a Sunday morning sermon I heard the scripture where Jesus said that we need to eat His flesh and drink His blood.

He doesn’t even just say it once,

He says it repeatedly,

over

and

over

and

over.

No other explanation was offered, no expounding, no apology, no watering down, no explaining why He appeared to be asking them to do the most extreme opposite thing to every moral fiber and thing He had so far seemed to stand for.

Nothing.

Just a simple statement - from which so many walked away.

John 6 “48 I am the bread of life….If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”

53 Then Jesus said to them, “…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 him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him…”

60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”

61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?”…….From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

There is something about that scene that so disturbed me to the core, the question arises of what I would have done in their shoes.

Cannibalism?

Seriously?

I mean, we know the end of the story, but they didn't.

What were they thinking, wondering…were their dreams and hopes being flushed away with this one impossible statement that made no sense and offended every cell within them? No wonder they walked. But oh how I wish they had stayed. I find myself wishing I could cry out to Jesus, ask Him to explain just this one, right then and there. We deal so badly with offense even in the face of what we know to be trustworthy, which we can lean on in the face of uncertain presentations of reality that are offending us.

And then the last 12 disciples were left standing there.

Bemused,

perplexed,

bewildered,

confused no doubt

and yet,

they had nowhere else to go.

They did not understand any better than the others what He was asking or why He was asking it. All they knew is that they were out of options, there was nowhere else to go.

This was the answer,

HE was the answer,

they KNEW Him so well that He could have asked anything, said anything and they would have followed not because of their ability but because they trusted Him and it was as black and white as that. He was the only messiah, He was the only answer. Whatever.

67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”

68 But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

So,

I am standing at the altar after a week of this scene niggling in the back of my mind and all of a sudden the familiar passage is read and boom.

There it was.

"And Jesus took bread and He broke it, saying this is my body, broken for you"

And I got it.

It was like I was hearing it for the first time. Was like I was sitting round that table with the disciples, following Him for Him, unable to reconcile everything I have heard and yet knowing that all that was needed was that HE knew. And then He lifted the bread… and explained.

I wanted to shout:

"oh my gosh, I CAN do that! I can eat bread and remember and… that is what you meant?!"

I felt like dancing and singing and laughing. I felt the weight of an impossible ask lift from my shoulders, the explanation freeing me from the burden of misunderstanding and confusion. I knew in that instant that He knows what He is asking, and He also knows that though He sounds like He is asking us the world, like He might offend us, confuse us, stretch us and baffle us at times with the magnanimity of what He asks…

…He also knows what He means and that we will be more than able to do what He has before us.

It’ll seem as huge as being asked to eat flesh

but will be as easy & life giving as eating bread.

We have just got to trust and follow the person that we know rather than the doctrines we find easy to do.

I know Him.

I trust Him.

I will go anywhere for & with Him.

Where else would I go?

He is the only one with the words of eternal life, He is the only one I love more than life itself.