Today we will read that Christ offers us food that endures to eternal life.

Have you ever been hungry?
What are you hungry for today?

Through out this discourse Jesus is teaching.

They ask a practical question and he gives a spiritual answer.

The people want a sign.

They compare his sign to the sign of Moses.

"Very Truly I tell you," Jesus is still teaching them.

The first truth he taught: everyone who believes in Jesus receives food that endures to eternal life.

This second truth: it is the father who gives food that endures to ever lasting life, true bread from heaven gives ever lasting life.

The first truth he taught: Everyone who believes in Jesus receives food that endures to eternal life.

This second truth: It is the father who gives food that endures to ever lasting life, true bread from heaven gives ever lasting life.

The third truth: Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.

These sum up all that he is saying and teaching the crowd, his followers, and the twelve disicples.

Jesus declares that he is "the bread of life" they have been talking about.

Jesus offers a greater teaching and a greater understanding:

Jesus is telling them he is offering them sustenance that will give life for all eternity and life for the entire world and he is inviting them to partake in it.

Torah would teach that consuming human flesh and drinking blood is a sin.

How could Jesus be telling them to do this?

Jesus said he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

The crowd and the disciples aren't getting it, so he doubles down on the metaphor.

Any time Jesus has said the word eat or talks about eating all the way through verse 53 the root of the word he uses here for "eat" is a version of the Greek word "Phago" which literally means "eat."

In verses 54, 56, and 57 the words he uses for "eat" and "feeds on" are The word for eat in v. 54,56, and 57 are"Trogon"
This word also means eat, but more the way you would eat a vegetable, it means to "chew on or gnaw on"

In these same verses the word he uses for drinks is "Pinon"
This word means "to drink" but it can also be used figuratively to mean: "to receive into the soul what serves to refresh, strengthen, and nourish it unto life eternal."

If what he had said before was offensive, this was now utterly difficult to hear. He is using hyperbole to make a point....

"the bread God sent through Moses, satisfied for a time. The bread of life that is Jesus' flesh it will satisfy for all time." It is greater.

Jesus asks, "Does this offend you?"

The greek word for this phrase is "Skandalezei"
It means "to cause to stumble, to give offense, to fall away."

Here Jesus speaks plainly to his disciples.

This isn't about actually eating Jesus flesh, this is a spiritual act, the spirit will give life. The flesh counts for nothing, it is about who has come in the flesh and his words are full of spirit and life.

And many of the crowd of disciples turn back because of this.

Among the 12 disciples though, we are told Peter gets it.

This section closes with Peter declaring, that Jesus "has the words of eternal life." He says, "We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God."

So often today as Christians we settle.
We are hungry to encounter something real. We look for signs.
The one who satisfies that hunger has already come and done a greater thing.

But we aren't called to simply to consume that knowledge.

He calls us to "chew on it," to work it out. To understand more deeply what it means to be satisfied by him. To find all of our sustenance in him, the bread of life--who takes away the hunger of the world.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
What are you hungry for today?
Are you willing to settle for lesser things like the crowd?

Are you unwilling to acknowledge the truth of what God has done for you like the disciples who left? --Jesus still offers you eternal life, if you would believe.

Or, are you willing to believe and to take time to work out your salvation and allow it to sustain you?