Title: Scandalous Words
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: John 6:56-69
Sometimes I get tired of hearing the same story over and over. When our kids were little, we read more than 400 different books to them over a summer. That was a lot of reading, but it was mostly varied. One of those books, however, we read at least 30 time. I did manage to add some variation by doing some of those reads in Spanish. You might think the kids were trying to memorize the books, not simply read them. On the other hand, they were intent on digesting them and getting everything out of them that was possible. When Jesus repeats himself, do we get tired of hearing the same, or do we look for something we might have missed the first time around?
For three Sundays, we've been reading of Jesus in John chapter six. On one level, it appears Jesus is stuck, like a scratched record or a CD on repeat. He continues discussing his body and blood as food throughout this chapter of John, much of his words hitting the same concept over and over. On another level, however, Jesus' repeating message is not about eating his body or drinking his blood. It goes much further than that. Eating his body and drinking his blood are just a conjoined image he uses to convey something he has already been talking about regarding this enduring life.
One phrase in today's passage is a close repeat of John 5:24, "Whoever trusts me has enduring life." Here it reads "Whoever eats/drinks me has enduring life." They are both phrased in the present tense, referring to a contemporary reality, not something off in a nebulous future. It is very similar to what we heard in John 4, in which living water gushes to become enduring life. In chapter 3, trusting Jesus extends enduring life. Then there is another recurrent aspect of this other repetition. Jesus references abiding in him in today's passage. It is the very same language we will find in chapter 15, in which Jesus speaks of himself as the vine, us the branches ...
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: John 6:56-69
Sometimes I get tired of hearing the same story over and over. When our kids were little, we read more than 400 different books to them over a summer. That was a lot of reading, but it was mostly varied. One of those books, however, we read at least 30 time. I did manage to add some variation by doing some of those reads in Spanish. You might think the kids were trying to memorize the books, not simply read them. On the other hand, they were intent on digesting them and getting everything out of them that was possible. When Jesus repeats himself, do we get tired of hearing the same, or do we look for something we might have missed the first time around?
For three Sundays, we've been reading of Jesus in John chapter six. On one level, it appears Jesus is stuck, like a scratched record or a CD on repeat. He continues discussing his body and blood as food throughout this chapter of John, much of his words hitting the same concept over and over. On another level, however, Jesus' repeating message is not about eating his body or drinking his blood. It goes much further than that. Eating his body and drinking his blood are just a conjoined image he uses to convey something he has already been talking about regarding this enduring life.
One phrase in today's passage is a close repeat of John 5:24, "Whoever trusts me has enduring life." Here it reads "Whoever eats/drinks me has enduring life." They are both phrased in the present tense, referring to a contemporary reality, not something off in a nebulous future. It is very similar to what we heard in John 4, in which living water gushes to become enduring life. In chapter 3, trusting Jesus extends enduring life. Then there is another recurrent aspect of this other repetition. Jesus references abiding in him in today's passage. It is the very same language we will find in chapter 15, in which Jesus speaks of himself as the vine, us the branches ...
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