By Such Stripes

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By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver

Saturday Living bread
John 6: 26-59
For today and Sunday, we reflect on readings from John 's Gospel. The writer sets forth the theme of this book in the prologue.: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
The words are so familiar they no longer shake us. They are shocking nonetheless. That is some message -- the word became flesh! As far as words can go in expressing it, these words are the summary statement of the central Christian contradiction.
Much of our experience with flesh leads us to the conviction that the only good news regarding it would be the provision of an escape from it. It is in our life in the flesh that we sin and suffer.
But it is also where we love and work, and an escape from the flesh would be cheap healing. A deeper healing would be possible if the Word became flesh. What a miracle that would be!
The way these early Christians write about the flesh is most revealing. They clearly consider the flesh as a problem, cursed or corrupted or in some way alienated from God. They continually speak of the conflict between life according to the flesh and life according to the spirit. But at the same time they speak of flesh as being at the heart of the matter. Flesh is given a central role in God's work of salvation.
I didn't select our reading from the sixth chapter of John because I thought I knew exactly what it meant, but because the author is obviously trying very hard to say something. In connection with the feeding of the five thousand he has Jesus trying to distinguish between the food the crowd sought him for and the true bread of life. John 's Gospel is made up of a whole series of long discourses or dialogues in which an attempt is made to penetrate through misunderstandings to fine distinctions. In this dialogue John uses 25 verses trying to make the point. As it proceeds there is an increasing lack of receptivity on the part of the listeners until everyone but the 12 has left. And they confess they have nowhere else to go.
In this discourse John is telling us that we have not come to a true understanding of Christianity until we see it as the gift of Christ's flesh. That is the true bread of life.
"The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." How fascinating: not his thoughts, or his ideas, or his spirit, but his flesh! What do you think is meant by Christ's flesh? His body, his physical presence, his walk, his face, his voice, his gaze, his touch, his relationships, his choices, his hunger and thirst, his wounds, his pain? Why is flesh used as the summing up of Jesus' life and ministry?
There follow even stranger words which offend almost everyone.: "Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."
Whatever in the world does John have in mind in recording these words? Why does he locate them here and not in connection with the bread and wine of the last supper? He certainly sees them as carrying a powerful message.
I invite you to let the words work. What kinds of thoughts, insights, connections, revelations come to you from the notions --: 1. that Christ's salvation comes to us in his flesh; and
2. that the metaphors "to eat" and "to drink" are especially revealing of the way in which we appropriate that salvation.
Offering
Merciful God,: We present unto you our bodies, a living sacrifice.
It is with our bodies that we consume the fruit of the earth and
care for its life.
It is with our bodies that we speak a word for others and receive a word from others.: It is with our bodies that we strike blows and in our bodies that we receive blows.
It is with our bodies that we touch and relate to others.: It is in our bodies that we tremble with glee and quake with terror.
It is by our bodies that we are known.: If our bodies were at your disposal, if they carried your mark everything would be where it ought to be.
Receive, O God, the living sacrifice of our bodies, place your mark upon them.
Amen