Accustomed as we are to hearing the words, "This is my body" in the consecration of the sacrament and "The body of Christ" as we receive holy communion bread, do we still draw back in surprise at hearing our Lord say "flesh"? Accustomed as we are to hearing the words "The blood of Christ" when we take the chalice, do we still find a murmur rising in our minds as we hear this text: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you"?

The gospel for today seems very straightforward. Jesus, who had said to them, "I am the bread of life," rephrases his words slightly, saying, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven." Now he alters the promise that as the living bread he gives life to the world. He had earlier said, "Whoever comes to me, and whoever believes in me.they will never be hungry and never be thirsty." Now Jesus says, "Whoever eats of this bread will live forever." Up to this section of John's gospel's sixth chapter Jesus has used "bread" to refer to his teaching and his ministry. In the section given for today there is a change. He defines "bread" in a different way. "The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." And -- it's true, isn't it? -- that word "flesh" gives us pause.

It also stopped his hearers. It started a dispute. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus does not explain how. Instead he becomes even more specific: "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Then he restates that in positive terms, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink." Even more, that gives us pause, doesn't it?

Interesting, isn't it, where we find the sticking point? We -- most of us -- do not cavil at the assertion, "I came down from heaven." Those first hearers did. But we don't -- most of us. Nor do we tilt our heads in a questioning way at the direct statement, "I will raise them up on the last day." We -- most of us -- accept in faith, quite unquestioning faith, that the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, became incarnate, that is, that divine being "was made man" as the Creed states it. Not simply a man, a male child, a boy baby, although that we accept as true, but more than that, the representative of all human beings. In the Genesis account Adam was the first person, and at first the only person, the totality of all humankind. Then Adam and Eve were everybody in the world. When scriptures call Jesus the Second Adam, he stands for everybody in the world. He stands for all of us as representative. He died for all of us. He was raised from the dead as the first fruits of all of us who are dying and of all those who have died. He will raise up all the dead and give eternal life to all who believe.

Are you following this? We -- most of us -- accept all this in faith without a dubious murmur or complaint. And all this is -- what shall we say? -- "unbelievable" stuff. It is "unknowable." Only by divine revelation in scripture and only by inner working of the Holy Spirit, only by faith do we accept all this as true.

But we get stuck on "eat my flesh." We look for an alternative at "drink my blood." We understand that when Jesus said that he was "the bread of God which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world" he was using a figure of speech. He was like manna. He was like the basic staple of food that sustains life. And even though he did not mention any liquid or say that he was living water, we had no difficulty in accepting the claim Jesus was making that he was all that we need to have real life, here and forever. We would not be hungry and we would not be thirsty, that is, we would be fully satisfied if we accepted Jesus' claims, Jesus' word and work.

Now he goes beyond metaphor, beyond figures of speech. He says, "I am speaking of my flesh. I am referring to my blood. The flesh that developed in nine months in the womb of Mary. The blood that coursed through my veins and cheeks in the manger. The blood that colored the bandage Mary put on my finger when I cut it with Joseph's saw in the carpenter shop. Flesh and blood are mine, flesh-and-blood adds up to me. This is what I will give for the life of the world. I will give my flesh and blood on the cross like a lamb sacrificed, the lamb of God taking away the sins of the world. Flesh nailed on the cross. Flesh pierced by the spear. Blood from that side, from those hands, from the crown of thorns, from the scourge. Blood that cleanses from all sin. I am saying that my flesh now is also true food and my blood is true drink. I am saying that those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life." This is what we hear Jesus saying. Jesus said to the crowd after the feeding of the thousands, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

Not that this is simple. Interpreters differ on the meaning of the entire section. Some argue that the words "eating" and "drinking" are to be interpreted as figures of speech. Then the passage would only be urging hearers to assimilate for their own well-being all that Jesus was about to accomplish in his flesh and blood passion. Some think these were part of John's report of Christ's institution of the sacrament of Holy Communion which otherwise goes unreported in this gospel. In the sequence of John's account these events take place much before the Lord's last supper with his disciples. These hearers would not have been able to connect the Lord's words with the eating and drinking of that sacrament. Those scholars think these verses were placed here as the manuscripts were copied because of their similarity to Christ's description of himself as "bread." They hold, however, that these words of the Lord do describe in specific terms the eating and drinking which the Savior instituted in the sacrament of his last supper. And the Savior says, both here and in the accounts of the supper's institution, "my body and my blood."

For most of us who believe the incarnation of our Lord, who believe that he was conceived into flesh, these words really matter. They describe how that real presence of God in matter continues today. In the gift of flesh and blood his real presence in matter is discernible until he returns in visible presence.

It could help us to think this through under two headings. The first is the meal. The second is the menu.

Of all the human actions Jesus is described as doing, eating and drinking are perhaps the most familiar. Only suffering is more specifically detailed. He is never pictured as laughing. He wept only a few tears. The divine-human Jesus ate and drank as naturally and as necessarily as we all. When he wanted to assure his followers that he truly was alive after his dying, when he had returned to be with them, he asked, "Have you anything here to eat?" The disciples then gave him a piece of broiled fish, "and he took it and ate in their presence" (Luke 24:41-43). What was always "unnatural" or rather "supernatural" was that it was God sharing in the bread and wine, the fish and the vegetables. It was God fellowshipping with his friends in our warmest expression of unity -- a meal. When, therefore, Jesus wanted a memorial to make sure his followers would always hold him in their minds, a way to continue his presence among them, he started a supper, with eating and drinking. He could, no doubt, have stayed on once he had risen from the dead and not ascended after the forty days. He could have made Jerusalem his headquarters and let pilgrimages develop as the way we could keep in touch with him. He could have instituted a ceremonial touching of his garment as the way to receive power from him. Instead he decided on a meal. (Of course, we are conjecturing -- so Saint Paul once said -- as fools.)

A meal, then. Yes. We can concede that. But the menu? Of course, we speak of this, too, as fools. It is not our business. But it may supply a way for our limited minds to think God-thoughts, to ponder what indeed our Lord did. The menu: "My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink," Jesus said. What was the divine strategy for our salvation? It hinged on putting flesh on God. God would appropriate our human nature and "be found in fashion as a man." Human nature consists of more than flesh and blood, of course. But for us who are sensible, who depend upon our five senses to understand, flesh and blood are the things which we can touch and see, the things by which we recognize humanity, the things that sum up for us living beings.

God, therefore, just as he gave us his Son in our human nature, and made him visible in flesh and blood, also decided to continue his divine presence among us by making the flesh and blood of the incarnate Son available to us -- this time not only for us to see and to touch, but to eat and to drink. God continues to give us himself, to give us the same Beloved Son once given to us incarnate, to give us him in bread and wine, to give us his body and his blood in a meal. And so Jesus Christ continues to be, to be among us, God, filling all things, with us always, incarnate but invisible, making his presence known, making his blessings available to us in his body and blood with the gifts of bread and wine in this meal of remembrance.

Ours not to reason why this way, of course, but does not this attempt to understand help us as we hear Jesus say, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you"? Does it not help us as we hear Jesus in this post-resurrection phrasing of his earlier words, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6)? And all this is said positively in this gospel: "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me."

We do not ask the "how can this man give us his flesh to eat" question, but we often do wonder why. Our Lord ate and drank with sinners while he was seen among us. We are sinners still. Will not his love prompt him to break bread with us as well? Since he has promised to be with us always, even though invisible, do we not rejoice at this promise, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them"? How greatly blessed, we, who eat and drink with him, who eat and drink -- him! "