“The Life is in The Blood”

This treatise is part of a three essay series on the Holy Eucharist written by Fr. Carlos Raines.

The Meaning of the Holy Eucharist
As Jesus Taught it in John Chapter 6

One of the things that stands out as one reads the writings of the Early Church Fathers from Ignatius of Antioch (@100 A.D.) onward is how universal is the idea of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar; what Ignatius and later fathers all called the Holy Eucharist.  Ignatius, who was a disciple of John the Apostle, and was the Bishop of the Church of Antioch (where both Paul and Peter taught) declares that the Holy Eucharist is the “Medicine of Immortality.”  He says that he no longer desires the “dainties” of this world, but for bread he longs for the flesh of Christ and for drink he longs for the blood of Christ “an immortal love feast indeed!”  The Real Presence means that the bread and the wine truly become the body and blood of Christ by the end of the prayer over the elements and that they are the very life of God, eternal life, as God’s people eat and drink.

​So if this high view of the Holy Eucharist was so boldly, so intentionally taught by Ignatius (and everyone after him until the Reformation), then where did this powerful and life-giving idea come from?  

Happily, we need to look no further than the Gospel of John itself!

In the 26th verse of the sixth chapter of John, Jesus meets the people who had been among the 5,000 who had been miraculously fed and says this to them:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.   27  Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

These words of Jesus form the prologue for the rest of the 6th chapter.  Jesus sets the stage for a discussion about food “that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.”  As an added help for His listeners Jesus goes on to insist that He is the focus of what is to come.  He seems to be implying that what He is about to teach is so radical for his listeners that they need to focus on HIM, and his character and his source (the Father) in order to “survive” this next teaching as disciples of His.  Jesus, the Jewish rabbi knows that what is coming is probably more challenging than if He were to suggest that people could become Jews without circumcision.  

Then He unleashes the dreadful words.

  35 “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

  48  I am the bread of life.   49  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.   50  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.   51  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 

We can only imagine the impact these words would have had on any Jews in any century!  The clear implication to them would be some kind of cannibalism; a topic that would never be seemly even to mention. 

What in the world was Jesus up to?  Why would He raise this topic?  Surely He must have known that this teaching, if taken literally, would end his relationship with most if not all of His disciples!  Yet so far in this passage He is doing nothing to soften the blow; no effort to suggest He is speaking metaphorically or symbolically.  

One thing seems clear to me: He must have been speaking about something that, to Him, was worth the near certain misunderstanding and even the loss of disciples whose utter rejection of this word would mean they could no longer listen to Him at all.  So we are left with this thought:  whatever this teaching about His body and His blood might mean, it was so important, so essential to the Faith He came to teach, that no choice was left to Him: it had to be taught.  

This leaves us much to ponder!  Which we will do in the next installment of this blog!