The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who 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, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever." This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. John 6:52–59 (RSV)
If you would, read this passage from John's Gospel again, then sit and think about it for a couple of minutes. Now read it once more, and ponder what you just read. Can you begin to understand why the Jews were responding so strongly to what Jesus was telling them?
'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.' What we barely hear, the Jews heard with horrifying clarity. We are used to the words and the promised attached to them. The Jews hearing them for the first time, cannot get their minds wrapped around what Jesus has just said.
Are we so insensitive that the thought of eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus no longer stirs us? Or do we take the bread and wine, not even considering them to be anything other than what they appear to be? What lies between the disgust of the Jews and our joyful reception of His Body and Blood?
Holy Thursday, Gethsemane, Good Friday, and the Holy Cross stand between ours and the Jew's hearing. Jesus risen victorious from the dead, having destroyed death's power forever, stands between us. They could not imagine Jesus being God, let alone Jesus transforming the Passover, Jesus becoming the Lamb of God who takes away the world's sin.
The Passover lamb's blood on the doorposts and lintels of their slave dwellings deterred death's angel. The lamb was their freedom meal to be eaten on the night death passed over them. John the Baptist foretold this moment when he cried, 'Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the world's sin.
Jesus is our Passover feast. He offers His Body and Blood to stay the angel of death, not for a night, but all eternity. His blood shed on the cross outside Jerusalem's walls has become the doorposts and lintels of our heavenly home, the gate by which death's cruel work is undone.