You'd Think We Get It By Now

Once again we're in the Gospel of John and we hear Jesus tell those gathered that he is the bread of life and in order to have eternal life we need to consume his flesh. Except this time Jesus turns it up a notch and mentions that those gathered not only need to eat of his flesh but drink his blood as well.

John 6:51-58 is an extension of what we've been reading the last few weeks. If you remember last week we discovered that Jesus is using the image of eating his flesh (and now drinking his blood) as a metaphor for fully ingesting his teachings. In John's point-of-view Jesus is saying that the only way to reach eternal life is to fully ingest all that Jesus is trying to teach.

This week I want to talk about "eternal life". The Greek word used in the bible is zoe. Simply (maybe not so simply) translated zoe means "of the absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God..." (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2222&t=KJV).

Life, as translated in John and most of the New Testament doesn't necessarily mean being alive, rather it's truer meaning is to be filled with life; to be free from that which stops you from living in a way that brings true joy and peace. Stop and think, what brings you down? Maybe it's the feeling of not belonging to a particular group. Maybe it's not being "allowed" to be the true person you are. Maybe it's the fear of failing or being ridiculed. Any of those things will have the tendency to stop our lives, but if we can fully ingest all that Christ is, all that Christ is trying to teach us, all that is Christ, then we can start to live again.

Not a day goes by when I hear voices from people around me stating that "it doesn't matter, nobody cares anyway." Nothing can be further from the truth. God cares. God will always care. God's love never diminishes, never slows down, never leaves you - no matter what you do or who you are - so start loving each other with the same unconditional acceptance. That's the message Jesus Christ brings to us. Period. End of discussion.