Tags
Abide, Discipleship, Grace, Holy Communion, John 12:46, John 15:4, John 6:56, John 8:31, Life, Lord's Table
Day 35
Saturday in the fifth week of Lent
John 6:56
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
John uses this word ‘abide’ 43 times in his gospel. This compares to three uses in Matthew, one in Mark, and seven in Luke. Given that it is also used another 27 times in the three short letters of John, it is clearly a deeply significant term for John’s community.
In John 12 Jesus says, “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain [abide] in the darkness.” In John 15 Jesus speaks of the vine and the branches: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” And in John 8:31 Jesus says, “If you continue [abide] in my word, you are truly my disciples…”
The first disciples who come to Jesus ask where he abides, and over the course of the Gospel we see that he abides in the Father and opens the way for us to abide there, too.
To eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood is language that would scandalize faithful Judeans (even as it is a little too graphic for our sensibilities), but the hearers of John’s Gospel know that Jesus is talking about participating in the Lord’s Table – an act intimately linked, even synonymous, with living in the believing community and being immersed in Jesus’ teaching.
“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” is a saying filled with grace and consequence. In the shared meal we are in Christ and Christ in us; we are immersed in the divine and the divine in us. And in that table we are also summoned to faithfulness to one another and to Jesus’ teaching. His life is our life in every sense of the word.
Living Bread, Welcome Arms,
companion on the way and our eternal home,
abide in us that we may abide in you.
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Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_Meal_of_Our_Lord_and_the_Apostles_(Repas_de_Notre-Seigneur_et_des_ap%C3%B4tres)_-_James_Tissot.jpg; James Tissot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
© David K Bonde, 2021, All rights reserved