After Jesus feeds the 5,000 in John 6, the next day the crowds met Him on the other side of the sea and asked Him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” In verses 26-27 Jesus answers saying, “Most assuredly I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” So what is this food which endures to everlasting life? What does the Bible teach us about it? Let’s start by looking at a chapter in Proverbs called “Wisdom’s Feast.”
Proverbs 9:1-6 says, “Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars; She has slaughtered her meat, she has mixed her wine, she has also furnished her table. She has sent out her maidens, she cries from the highest places of the city, ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!’ As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, ‘Come, eat of my bread, drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake foolishness and live, and go in the way of understanding.”
So we see Lady Wisdom calling on the “simple” to come and eat of her bread and drink of her wine. Who are the “simple”? Those who have yet to acquire wisdom by the Word of God. Those who do not yet understand the meaning of her feast: the bread and the wine. Well before Jesus’ time, she is prophesying about Him. The bread and the wine symbolizing His body and blood, she is saying we must forsake the foolishness of unbelief and go in the way of understanding our need for our Savior. But we have hindsight. The Jews Jesus spoke to did not. They knew not of communion. So what did Jesus teach them in John 6 to prepare them to “go in the way of understanding”?
After telling the Jews to labor for food that lasts, Jesus reveals to them in verse 32, “Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven (referring to the manna the children of Israel ate in the wilderness), but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Proverbs says that Lady Wisdom was with God from the beginning before Creation even began, even as Jesus was slain from the foundation of the earth. So we realize now that Jesus is the very bread that Lady Wisdom was preparing to give life to the simple. She called them to come and eat! And find life in turning from foolishness, in turning to Christ.
Well, this fact, that *Jesus* is the true bread and food that lasts, challenged the Jews he was speaking to because they saw him as merely being Joseph’s son making grand claims as He was of being from heaven and equal to God His Father. So He took it even further and *really* threw them for a loop by claiming that only those who *eat* His body and drink His blood have life! Look at verses 53-58 which say, “Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed…This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
What Jesus is alluding to here is the sacrament of communion. When we partake of the bread and wine, we are partaking of His broken body and shed blood. This practice is a seal of the New Covenant. Just like Lady Wisdom cries out to the simple, the prophet Isaiah cries out a similar message, declaring in chapter 55:1-3, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; and you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me and eat what is good, and let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Hear and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you—the sure mercies of David.”
This covenant God makes is the New Covenant in Christ. It promises “the sure mercies of David,” or the forgiveness of God for our transgressions. What are we called to do? Come, buy without price and eat wine and true bread! Partake of the sure mercy of communion in faith. “Buy” the priceless gift of God’s mercy through your contrite heart and faith in Him. Satisfy the true longing of your soul—to be delivered from death, to have hope and peace and rest forever—with true food—the body and blood of Christ. In John 6:56, Jesus said, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood *abides* in Me and I in Him.” What does this mean, abides? How do we abide in Jesus by eating of His body and blood?
Every time we partake of the bread and the wine, we remember and glorify Him with a contrite heart of love, cherishing His broken body and blood shed, cherishing all the pain and suffering He endured out of love for us. We hallow His cross and take the crushing reality of it into our most intimate being, into our hearts. We sit with the gravity of our sin and fathom the majesty of a God who cares so deeply to be united with us in the intimate space of our hearts that He desires that we should consume the flesh He came down to bear for our sake in remembrance of Him—flesh we cannot become in ourselves, dead in our sins. We live in this fallen world as fallen souls.
Alas, Jesus became just like us, broken. We take that broken body and make it one with our own brokenness. Genesis says God makes the two, man and wife, one flesh. Jesus is our bridegroom and in this act of communion, we become one flesh with our spiritual Husband. In this intentional and sacred union, we are committing *our* body and blood to an act of devotion, our own sacrifice for His sake. The only and best way to show how grateful we are and how much we love Him is to do as He did for us—to die for Him. We let our death become one with His death, that our life may become one with His Life.
Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” We make our bodies a temple of living sacrifice like He did His. Romans 6:5-11 describes this beautifully, stating, “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
St. Peter agreed with St. Paul, stating something similar in 1 Peter 4:1-2 which says, “Since, therefore, Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same intention, so as to live the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God.” In chapter 2 of the same letter, Peter describes what is this will of God for us? In verses 21-24, he states, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow in His steps: ‘Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth’; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”
God left us His example, how we can live to righteousness as He did, how we can die to sin as He died in our place—our true worship and gratitude for all He has done for us, for what we are not capable of doing for ourselves. When we eat the bread of heaven in communion, we take His broken body into our own broken lives and let His stripes heal us by the power of His Spirit. We eat of His death into our own flesh, committing our lives to Him in self-sacrifice. We die to our own selfish human desires, to all the sin that tempts us each day, and we live to God and His righteousness. As we die and abide in His death, so too will we abide in His resurrection from the dead and in His eternal life. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
So, let us take Jesus words to heart today. He spoke through Lady Wisdom long ago calling us to forsake foolishness and come and eat of her bread and wine, to be understanding of our need for salvation through God and His cross. He spoke through Isaiah long ago calling us to “Come, buy and eat!” the bread without price that truly satisfies—food in which you can delight your soul! He spoke in His life on earth, warning the crowds and His disciples that true life is only found in His body and blood. We must eat of it to unite ourselves most intimately with His suffering and become one flesh with Him. As we die to our old selves lost in sin and live to the righteousness of God through His Spirit, we find eternal life! He is Alive forever and in Him, so are we! Isn’t that Amazing? It was such confidence that led Paul to proclaim in Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” So too it is with any who will partake of His death in their lives—to live is Christ and His cross, and to die is Gain in the hope of eternity in heaven reunited with our Precious Maker and Father and Savior. Thank You dear Jesus for all You have done for us! Amen.