Cannabilism or Medication?

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)

In the context of some of the mysterious ways Jesus said things in this chapter, this verse is an important key for proper interpretation. Jesus had just stated that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. This obviously would have had definite shock effect on His hearers and was designed to make them think outside what they were used to thinking. They had been choosing to not track with Him time after time as He tried to present important clues about living in true reality in God's kingdom. They had been insisting on interpreting everything He was saying through the filters of their preconceived ideas about religion and God. But Jesus kept pressing on anyway and finally spoke things that were so shocking that they could no longer find a place in their pat ideas about religion in which to fit these words.

But I have to admit that I too have struggled with these strange expressions of Jesus much of my life. Yes, I have been instructed to interpret these things symbolically, and likely those explanations were true. But at the heart level I continued to wonder why Jesus didn't just speak more plainly so as to avoid any confusion to start with. Why did He have to say things that could so easily be construed to potentially make Him look like He had maybe lost His mind or was bordering on cannibalism? Why did He feel it necessary to go to such extremes with people who were already predisposed to wrest His words in order to discredit Him?

I don't have all the answers to those questions even yet. But in my own heart and mind I need to at least address the questions that linger about the validity of possible explanations for these words. If Jesus was not talking about literally eating His flesh and drinking His literal blood (which some insist was actually His intent even today), then where did He offer an explanation of these strange terms that would help us interpret them properly?

The opening text here is the key to viewing what Jesus was trying to convey and what people were seeking to avoid. From a literal standpoint Jesus almost seems to be reversing Himself by saying that the flesh amounts to nothing after just saying His flesh was vital for us to enter into eternal life. A literalist would find ammunition to quibble with His words, but then so did the unbelieving Jews. But Jesus was trying to get across some vital truths that are necessary to embrace for any who want to enter into real life and I don't want to follow the example of those who seek to distort His words of life.

In chapter three Nicodemus also seemed to wrestle with understanding properly how to enter into real life the way Jesus described it. Jesus immediately took him to the subject of the Spirit and the activity that the Spirit would produce in a person's life if one was willing to be led by it. Here again I find Jesus taking people back to the issue of a willingness to submit to the authority of God's Spirit in the life. But it is highlighting the need to relate to God at the spirit level of our being more than just conforming to outward rules and expectations to appear to be a good person. Unless the heart becomes fully engaged and submitted to the will of God and our spirit becomes aligned with His Spirit, no amount of religious performance will amount to anything whatsoever. True life must be received primarily in the arena of the spirit.

But Jesus takes it even one step further. It can be very easy for people to become so nebulous about following God with their spirit that they come to rely almost totally on their emotions and feelings to believe that they are properly connected with God. But Jesus insists that His words are the core issue in coming to know God and enter into life. In saying this He unlocks the strange words He has just stated about eating His flesh and drinking His blood but He also refers to the content and reason for all the things which He spoke. What was the main focus of all that Jesus said while He was here on earth? What was the purpose of speaking all the things He said to bring us the truth that results in eternal life?

I want to step back one step and ask, What is the purpose of eating and drinking to start with? Besides satisfying our cravings of hunger and thirst, which are certainly God-given urges to bring us to do things necessary for life, what is the fundamental purpose of eating and drinking? What results from these activities?

In both things, but in different ways with each, these are necessary activities by which we fuel our bodies to stay alive physically. To go without food will bring about malnutrition and finally starvation after a number of days. To fail to drink water will even more quickly bring us into ill health as our bodies are made up of around 90% water and we need this vital element to purify and lubricate our internal systems. Understanding the best ways to eat and to drink are important to having a long and healthy life. But even more importantly God wants us to not just have a healthy body but wants us to experience the even greater life that measures with the life of God.

Eating physical food and drinking literal water will not bring to us the full kind of life that God has in mind for us. Yes, it is necessary to take care of our bodies and doing so is an important way to cooperate with God for thriving and living. But there is much more to life than the familiar physical aspects that we are so used to thinking about, and this is the dimension that Jesus was trying to convey to His hearers. Our physical existence is actually something of an analogy to our spiritual existence, not something that should be in competition with it. But focusing on our physical dimension while failing to receive proper nourishment in the more important arena of our spirit's needs will starve us just as surely as refusing to eat will debilitate our bodies and eventually bring pain and death.

Just as it is true that eating the wrong kinds of foods and drinking the wrong kinds of liquids will also produce ill-health, so too it is vital to understand the kind of food and drink that will give us the true nourishment for our spirit that it was designed to live on originally. We have been living on spiritual junk food ever since sin entered into this world. And just like physical junk food can be very addicting in nature but fails to give us the vital nourishment that we need, so too, remaining stuck on spiritual junk food will lead to disease and death instead of the kind of eternal life that we were designed to enjoy.

But there is another aspect about food and drink that I don't want to miss here. When I take food into my body, that food and the elements within that food that are compatible with my digestive system actually become the organs and tissues and blood of my body. Very literally, I become composed of the actual elements of what I ingest. Likewise with water or liquids, what I drink even more quickly becomes absorbed into my system within seconds and permeates all over my body. When I drink unhealthy things designed to give me more pleasure than health, I suffer consequences of ill-health over time. If I choose to restrict what I eat and drink to the things God has shown are best for me, I can enjoy the optimum level of health and clarity of thinking possible given the body I have.

So too with my spiritual dimension. But in this arena it is often more difficult to easily identify the ill effects so clearly. When I abuse my physical body with poor diet and the wrong kind of drinking, the problems are more apparent, though in our day the disconnect between cause and effect seems to leave millions clueless as to why they experience such poor health and have so much sickness and disease. But when I am so used to the wrong kind of spiritual food from growing up never having experienced healthy spiritual nutrition, it is harder to grasp my desperate need for better nutrition in that area of my life. If I have never known what it is like to thrive and enjoy the freedom and joy of living closely with the real Source of life, then it is harder to sense the sickness that is all I have known since I was born.

This is why it is so important for the Spirit of God to make us aware of our need in this area. It is the Spirit's role to make us hungry and thirsty and to do whatever it takes to help us realize that we are starving for something that only can be found in intimate relationship with our Creator. The problem is that most of the time we interpret our hunger pangs improperly and turn to all sorts of other means to suppress that hunger and thirst. But this is the essence of worshiping false gods, for all other sources we look to for spiritual food and drink will only compound our dis-ease and intensify our cravings. Like a drug that seems to be just what we want but then leaves us more desperate than before, feeding and drinking on spiritual drugs and junk food only leaves us more hungry and thirsty for life and even angry because we are not getting the nourishment that we so desperately need.

So, what is Jesus offering me in this passage when He says I must eat His flesh and drink His blood? How am I ever to find the nourishment I need to thrive and live? Evidently it must have a great deal to do with His words and with the Spirit which He sends to supply this vital nourishment that my soul and spirit need in order to heal and thrive. As Jesus puts it, the literal flesh is not where we are going to find the satisfaction for the deep cravings of our soul. This is most often where we naturally tend to look to satisfy our cravings, but the cravings of the spirit within us can never find fulfillment in the arena of the flesh. We often attempt to satisfy our spirit cravings by exploiting others, through the indulging of lusts of all sorts and in seeking pleasures of various kinds to suppress our deep longings for real life. But they always leave us even worse off than before and until we come to the place where we are willing to listen to the words of Jesus and follow His instructions, we will never receive the kind of nourishment that is designed to perfectly satisfy the deep cravings of our spirit.

There is one more step to understanding the importance of these profound teachings of Jesus. What is the main content of the words of Jesus that when ingested will produce real life and growth and healing? What is it about Jesus' words that causes them to nourish us rather than leave us more hungry and thirsty than before? What are the vital ingredients in Jesus' flesh and blood that makes this source of nourishment effective in place of all the counterfeit sources we have used thus far?

This is the most exciting part of the gospel that I am only now beginning to really grasp. I am starting to see more and more clearly that the sole purpose for Jesus coming to this earth to offer us this life-giving opportunity, the only vital resource that will satisfy our deepest cravings, and that is a radical new revelation of the truth about our Father. All other sources of spiritual food are tainted with the poison of distortions and lies about God. All other food and drink has been contaminated with subtle misconceptions about God that keeps us afraid of Him. And fear that keeps us from trusting God is the very poison that will cause our own deaths eventually if we do not receive the life-giving nourishment and medication that Jesus came to provide for us.

Jesus came to reveal the real truth about the Father, the truth about His love and how He really feels about us. Jesus came to show us that God is not like His enemies have made Him out to be – harsh, vengeful, arbitrary, unforgiving, stern and looking to punish those who are against Him. All of these things contain the poison of lies about Him that becomes the fuel that will eventually destroy all those who cling to these lies. Only as we ingest the real truth about God as revealed in the life and death of Jesus, properly understood, can we be made safe to come into the intense presence of God delivered from the danger the toxic lies inside of us that would consume us from the inside out.

What I now see in these words of Jesus is that as I begin to really grasp the truth about God as displayed in the torn flesh and bleeding body of Jesus caused by the hands of angry sinners, I finally begin to realize that it is not God who is the one who is my problem but it is the lies about God that have kept me in rebellion and fear of Him. It is these that threaten to starve my spirit and destroy my ability to enjoy eternal life. Jesus said very plainly that eternal life is knowing the Father and the One the Father sent to reveal the truth about Him. To intimately know the true God is to enter into a vital relationship with the only Source of life that there is and to begin to experience true satisfaction. And as I come to know the real truth about God and that all the things that have made me afraid of Him are really lies and false accusations of His enemy, I then can begin to experience eternal life and will begin to abide in His Son.

He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. (John 6:56-57)

Grumbling and Stumbling

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, "This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?" But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, "Does this cause you to stumble?" (John 6:60-61)

As I look back over this chapter to see the overall picture that Jesus was attempting to share with those willing to listen, I start to see more clearly the contrast between belief and grumbling. Repeatedly Jesus invited those listening to Him to simply believe in Him and the Father He came to reveal to the world. But each time He presented some truth about God, the only response He got was more resistance which displayed itself in grumbling, finding fault with His statements and even refusing to allow Him to clarify His own meanings. Instead of genuinely seeking to know what He was trying to share with them, these people kept turning to each other to discuss His words; and since they could not find the answers their discussions became grumbling sessions.

I find it curious that in verse 52 it says the Jews were arguing with each other over Jesus' words. My understanding of argument is when people have sharp differences of opinion and are trying to convince each other to switch to their view. But in this case it seems more likely that these people were really arguing mostly against what Jesus was saying, but because they refused to come to Him directly with their contentions for whatever reasons, they kept to themselves with their comments about what He had said. Thus, they were only reinforcing their faulty ideas by tossing them around among themselves without allowing Jesus any opportunity to present His explanations or to defend Himself. In essence, they were arguing with Him without allowing Him to be in on the conversation.

I have been immersing myself in the book of John for quite some time now for the primary purpose of coming to know personally what real belief is. This book talks more about believing than any other place in the Bible. And as I have meditated on the many ways Jesus talks about saving belief even in just these first six chapters, it has been very enlightening for me and is helping me to enter into that belief myself. In this passage it is also becoming clear that where there is a lot of arguing and grumbling going on, then there is also a great deal of unbelief and resistance to what God is trying to convey.

In the verses quoted above even more of the results of choosing unbelief is revealed. These Jews found Jesus' words to be very difficult to swallow. Why was that? Because they had refused to have an open mind all along with each thing He had tried to tell them about God. It had largely started the day before when Jesus had foiled their attempts to make Him their earthly hero to conquer their enemies. Then when He had refused at the beginning of this discussion to go along with their desires to exploit His miraculous powers and give them free bread for life, they had fallen deeper into a condition of offense.

When we refuse to embrace the message of Jesus and insist on using our own filters to interpret everything, then we will always find it impossible to properly appreciate the mysterious things that Jesus says to us and will eventually find them offensive. Trying to figure out symbols and statements of God by using our own logic and frame of reference will make it impossible for us to make much real sense out of them. We will always feel that God is very difficult to understand because our flawed beliefs about what God is like and how He feels about us that distorts everything we hear from Him. And when we feel that God is being deliberately difficult and trying to confuse us with the way He communicates, then we will find His words to us to be a stumbling block instead of an invitation to life.

According to the words of Jesus here, when we are grumbling it is very likely that we are also stumbling. The two just go together. And offense is all wrapped up within this mindset. When we take offense at something God says instead of seeking Him to clarify it for us with an open mind and heart, we will be caught in Satan's trap of offense and will then sink into a deeper state of deception which always occurs in Satan's traps. Offense leads to self-deception and eventually turns into anger. As these people refused to allow Jesus to have credibility with them they came to resent His words and ideas and in anger they turned away from associating with Him.

As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. (v. 66)

It takes active watchfulness about the condition of our heart and spirit to guard against this subtle infestation of unbelief. It is all too easy to slip into spiritual arrogance and think that we are on the right track with God while in fact we are resisting the appeals of God to change our direction. These were not heathen who were rejecting Jesus and turning away from Him in this passage, They were pious Jews who believed they had the whole truth and were the favored children of God. If we think we are not in the same danger ourselves then we are already well deceived.

For many years I have struggled to comprehend the meaning of these blunt and even scandalizing words of Jesus about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. I have heard discourses trying to explain them, but still something inside me recoils at such language. I suspect that Jesus may have used such intense words for the purpose of trying to shock some into breaking out of their normal line of logic. It was so shocking that even His most trusting disciples found themselves shuddering in disgust and bewilderment at such talk. It was such a moment of divisiveness that Jesus finally turned to His own small group as others were walking away and asked if they were that offended too.

Am I easily offended when Jesus says things that seem incomprehensible to me? Am I unwilling to come directly to Him to ask for clarification but instead turn to some supposed expert on religion to explain what Jesus means? Am I even willing to allow Jesus to say things to me that are hard to grasp or do I want everything to be simple and straightforward and plain?

One of the most striking lessons I see in this chapter is God's fierce protection of our freedom to turn away from Him without resorting to force or intimidation to keep us. The kind of belief that Jesus is looking for has no shadow of coercion or fear involved. All His life Jesus invited people to come to Him and believe in Him but at the same time He refused to chase after anyone who refused to do so. He only looked at them in sadness as they walked away without once trying to manipulate or convince them to stay. He believed so strongly in our freedom to leave or stay with Him that He is the only safe example to examine in our own ways of dealing with people.

When to Grumble

Grumbling. Complaining. Criticizing. Fault-finding.

All of these things seem to be so natural for many of us, myself especially. In fact, they unfortunately come so easy that they seem as natural as breathing sometimes, and the extent of these temptations are far more pervasive than can be noticed many times. The more I become aware of this problem within myself the more I catch myself reacting to people or circumstances inwardly with an instant desire to look for what is wrong or expose someone else's weaknesses.

The history of the Children of Israel in the wilderness under the guidance of Moses is one of the most classic examples of grumbling ever written. In fact, their grumbling seemed so incessant that it is quite easy to distance ourselves from them and think that we don't have near the problem that they did. After all, our bouts with complaining are not near so offensive or widespread as theirs was – or is that really the case?

It is always much easier to see faults in the lives of others, either today or in illustrations from the Scriptures. Indeed, the Bible was handed down to us precisely for this purpose, to show through many and varied circumstances how God deals with people and how people deal with God and with each other. Because the Bible writers tend to spin the stories considerably different than our news organizations today might do them, we see much more clearly the problems created and the offensiveness of this deeply embedded habit of complaining and grumbling and how it can eat away at our relationship with God.

The Jews in Jesus' day had the same disease as their forefathers many generations before them had, and little has changed even in our lives today. If I am willing to be honest, open, vulnerable and responsive to the convicting of the Holy Spirit in my own heart, I have to admit that I too could be discerned as one who too easily complains, looks for faults in others to make myself look better or generally doubts God's good intentions for me when circumstances seem to point the opposite direction. Like the complaining Jews, it is all to easy for me to side with the insinuations of Satan rather than seek for the real truth and for reconciliation.

Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, "I am the bread that came down out of heaven."

Jesus answered and said to them, "Do not grumble among yourselves."

Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, "This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?" But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, "Does this cause you to stumble?" (John 6:41, 43, 52, 60-61)

I noticed something curious recently as I meditated on these verses that I had not thought about before. It is what Jesus did not say rather than what He did say that caught my attention. It might be easy to miss, but when Jesus told these people to quit grumbling among themselves, He did not tell them to quit grumbling altogether. That may sound a bit strange at first, but given some of the things I have learned over the years it sounds like something I should seriously look closer at to discover an important truth that I may need.

One of the worst things about grumbling and fault-finding is the social context in which it is normally conducted. I have been on the receiving end of this recently so it may be a bit more fresh in my thinking than normally. A number of people have engaged in surmising things about me that are not true and have chosen to spread malicious rumors about me amongst themselves without ever bothering to come talk to me first to check whether these things may be true or not. As a result a great deal of dissension and division and pain has resulted and our whole group is experiencing great turmoil and tensions right now. I am not the only one they have spread rumors and accusations about, but the results of keeping these things circulating without bothering to follow the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 18 has resulted in serious problems up to this point.

I am sure that I am guilty of doing the same thing many times. I hope that I am learning from my experiences, both from being on the brunt end of things and being made aware of when I do similar things to others. But the bottom line is that much damage is being created maybe more because of the direction of the comments than even the content of the rumors sometimes. Because people refuse to go to the person they are criticizing first to seek clarification and reconciliation, but instead run to others more sympathetic to their way of thinking who will eagerly feed on the juicy gossip, people's reputations are thrown into doubt and many friendships are jeopardized.

There are very solid reasons or principles behind the instructions of Jesus and if we would obey them we would find ourselves in far less difficulties. When Jesus tells us we should go directly to the ones we have a problem with first before talking behind their back with others, He is not saying we should not talk at all about their problems or our concerns about them. He is not saying we should ignore something we think is wrong or gloss over someone's faults. But He does clearly say that we should first go to the person we feel has a fault that we feel needs exposing and give them a chance to either explain themselves or come under conviction from God's Spirit that they are in need of repentance and change.

So I am now starting to see in these statements of Jesus that instead of suppressing all grumbling – which He didn't seem to be necessarily saying in these verses – He was telling these grumblers that they needed to come directly to Him instead of trying to talk to each other hoping He wouldn't notice. Instead of complaining that His words sounded like heresy or were too difficult to appreciate, they should have come to Jesus and asked for clarification. If they had done so the story of the Jews would have progressed dramatically differently.

Jesus at times said things that were very strange and difficult to understand at first. But He did so intentionally, as strange as that may sound at first; but He did that to invite questions, to create curiosity and to elicit inquiries for clarification so that people would dialog with Him and allow Him to lead them into greater light. If they had chosen to grumble directly to Him instead of among themselves He would have been eager to help them understand more clearly what His intended meaning was with His strange statements. But very seldom did either the Jews or even His own disciples come to Him to find out what His real meaning was or what was behind the many stories and illustrations He so often used.

But if I stop and think about it logically, it only makes sense that the answers we imply we are looking for in our grumbling cannot be found with others who may even know less than I do. If I have a problem understanding what someone said or did, the most reliable source for getting the answer to that misunderstanding would be the person themselves, at least if they are an honest person not given to deception and pretense. So going first to other people who likewise are just as mystified as I am to reinforce my confusion about what has happened or was said just makes no sense.

As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, "You do not want to go away also, do you?" (John 6:66-67)

What is the natural outcome of keeping our grumbling behind the scenes, of circulating gossip about others or even God without going to the subject of our rumors to check out the facts first? The result is always a tearing apart of relationships and a weakening of the bonds of affection between individuals. It says here that many were not willing to walk with Him anymore. This is one of the saddest things that can ever be said about someone who has been labeled as a disciple. For a disciple by definition is one who is a follower who is learning to imitate the example of the leader they are following. But when we refuse to take our grumbling directly to the one we are talking about with a spirit of seeking to reconcile our misunderstandings, the result is always the breakdown of sacred bonds of love and friendship and the building up of walls of prejudice and separation.

There is one more important point I should not miss in this context. Though there are times when our problem is simply the direction of our grumbling by passing it on to others while failing to give the people we are grumbling about a chance to explain themselves, there is also the times when, even if our grumbling is directed against those are are talking about we are unwilling to listen to their side of the story. We are so bent on promoting our version of the story, so intent on insisting that only our version of the situation is the correct one that we harden our hearts and do not honestly seek true reconciliation based on the truth.

It is at these times that we are so infected with the spirit of the father of all accusers that we pull away from the very Source of life and endanger even our eternal destiny. The spirit of discontent, grumbling, fault-finding and criticism is so toxic that it is one of the most difficult things to cure even by our loving heavenly Father. For when we indulge repeatedly and incessantly in this poisonous spirit, the atmosphere created around us is highly contagious and others inevitably become infected with the same spirit. Then, like a highly infectious virus, the poison of discontent and evil-speaking spreads rapidly and it takes much stronger measures to contain it and repair the damage caused in the hearts of many.

Father, You have shown me in many ways and over a long period of time how much I am in danger of succumbing to this virus. I see it sickening many around me right now and I am in constant danger of reacting by reflecting the same spirit myself. Please keep my focus on the truth about Your goodness, Your constant and irrepressible love, Your perfect ways of dealing with such problems and Your great mercy and patience as we all fall again and again into the trap of offense.

Transform me both in my mind and my spirit to obey the instructions You have given, to follow in Your ways and to cooperate with Your leading in my life. You have said that You are looking for people who are willing to be public experiments of Your grace. God, I want to be one of Your successful experiments for You to display openly how God can take a rebel who has played the religion game for many years and turn that one into a humble, loving servant passionate to bless others. Only Your grace can accomplish this inside of me, but then that is what Your experiments are all about. I give You permission again to do whatever it takes to heal, to transform, to clean out this channel so that Your glory can be better reflected to others and to attract them to want to know You better themselves.

"But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out." (John 6:36-37)