Jesus Is The Bread Of Eternal Life (J25)

(In this poem, I have used iambic hexameter instead of the usual pentameter; I have attempted to paraphrase as accurately as I can in modern southern American idiom the literal teachings of Jesus Christ as contained in the NIV, John 6:33-59. I confess that some lines are added to aid the clarity and some omitted as demanded for space. By the way, I have indented the 13th and 14th lines of all my sonnets as is proper, but the publisher has omitted the indentations for his own reasons.)

There is this brief life in flesh as woman or man,
The average years of which are three score and ten;
Then there’s the everlasting life after this one’s ran,
In which there’s no gender, flesh, night, and no end!
You won’t want to live that life, if you’re sent to hell,
But that’s where you’ll be, if Jesus you now ignore!
You’ll live in heaven with great joy, if He you tell
You believe He came from God to die so you can soar!
Of eternal life, Jesus is the bread and drink;
He let Himself be nailed to the cross, so that we
Escape the fate which our sins led us to the brink
Of paying for, had Jesus not died on the tree!
He will raise us up the last day to be with Him;
Those drawn by the Father, Jesus will not condemn!

Jesus always spoke in parables, symbolic or spiritual language in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which made His teachings more difficult for the Jews, even His disciples, to understand. This was deliberate; it was a result of God’s judgment of imposed dullness of spiritual insight on the Jews (See Isaiah 6:9-10). The fact is, at the time of Jesus’ incarnation, it was more important that Israel reject Jesus and crucify Him (because this would be the only way God’s plan of salvation by grace could be implemented) than for them to believe en masse and make Him their earthly king. Here, the day after He fed the five thousand on five small loaves and two fish, Jesus was encumbered by the crowd’s stubborn following of Him; they were not there to learn, as were the disciples; or believe in Him as the Lord; they were there for more free food. He told them so, but still they hung on, asking Him to feed them the bread like the manna that God supplied to the Children of Israel in their desert wanderings.

Therefore, still speaking symbolically, Jesus used a take-off from the bread of the small loaves; He asked them, why did they work for bread that spoiled? After all, He was the “bread of life”; by which He meant that if they “ingested” Him by learning and following all He taught, and He gave His flesh and blood to die on the cross in atonement for their sins, then His “flesh and blood” would be the bread of eternal life; it would not spoil. It was a parallel to the admonition to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (See Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount). Yet, it was a hard and gruesome thing to say, even symbolically; it had the desired effect; many of the still-lost, disinterested, sickened by the thought of “eating His flesh”, deserted Him. Many of those today who accept Jesus for a little while, fall away when they learn what following Him really means!

There is controversy about whether Jesus was speaking seriously about eating His flesh or not. The Roman Catholic Church interprets Him seriously. In their “mass”, officially called the Eucharist, they believe that the wafer, when being held up and blessed by the priest, actually transforms itself from bread into the very real flesh of Jesus Christ. Catholic parishioners who eat the wafer are ingesting Jesus into their bodies. The wafers are kept in the “tabernacle”, a small ornamental box with a decorative key, which is kept locked when not in use. They speak of “Jesus being present in the tabernacle and in every mass held anywhere in the world. I may be wrong, but I can’t believe this; if Jesus spoke in spiritual, symbolic language the majority of His ministry, why would He use literal words in this one instance?

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)