Recognizing Bread and Wine

“How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” (John 6:52 NKJV).

Jesus had stirred up quite a flap.

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,” He’d said, “you have no life in you…For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed” (John 6:53-56 NKJV).

To modern minds, the idea of feeding on a human is pretty repulsive. For the people of Jesus’s day, the suggestion bordered on abomination. They’d been taught the ancient directive since childhood. “I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls” (Leviticus 17:10-11 NKJV).

Life is in the Blood

The idea a being’s life was caught up in its blood wasn’t a new one. In many cultures, people consumed animal and even human blood for the specific purpose of absorbing some strength or characteristic embodied in the victim’s life. One might drink the blood of a lion, for example, to lay claim to its bravery or feast on that of an ox to gain its strength.

God forbade the consumption of animal blood because animals were meant as placeholders in the sacrificial system, intended to foreshadow a better, more perfect offering to come. Lives of animals could never provide what the Lamb of God would. It was in His life, and His alone, God wanted the people to share. It was His character traits alone He wanted them to take on.

Bread and Wine Together

At their final Passover meal together, Jesus associated His flesh and blood with the bread and wine. These elements harkened back to the grain offering with which they were already familiar.

Five general types of sacrifices went to the altar—burnt, sin, trespass, peace and grain. God shared portions of all but the burnt offering with His people to varying degrees. It was with the bread offering, however, He was most generous. While the first handful went to God, all the rest became food for His people (Lev. 2:1-3).

Every sacrifice but this one had blood to pour around the altar. So God instituted a drink offering, wine, to accompany the bread, making the grain offering as complete as the others. These were the elements Jesus lifted before His disciples that Passover evening so long ago, likening them to His body and blood.

Today, as we eat the bread, we see Christ shared with us from the hand of God–providing us the supernatural sustenance from which He drew His own strength. Today, when we lift the cup to our lips, we think of His life poured out like the blood of the grape–drowning our deadly sins in the wellspring of life.

What happens, though, when we take His body and blood and feed on it? Ah. For that, you’ll have to come back next week. As you wait, leave a comment and maybe you’ll find your thoughts woven into next week’s post. What runs through your mind when you take that cup and bread?