Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (John 6:56)

John’s Gospel is distinct from Matthew, Mark and Luke in a number of significant ways. There are a number of events that the others omit or only reference, and John leaves out much of what the others relate. John also tends to include quite a lot more about what Jesus said regarding himself and his mission.

For example, John’s account of the night before Jesus died has a great deal that the others don’t. He alone shares the foot washing in chapter 13, the “I am the way, the truth and the life” discourse in chapter 14, the vine and branches in chapter 15, the promise of the Holy Spirit in chapter 16 and the High Priestly Prayer in chapter 17. That is five full chapters on just that gathering.

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Jesus said, “I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” That is such a strange thing to say. How can his flesh be bread?

What does it mean to taste the bread of life?

I’ve shared a couple of stories with you from mission trips to El Hogar, a school for the orphans and the poorest children in Honduras. One day on a trip in 2015, a girl named Andrea came running up all excited. My Spanish is pretty good, so I understood what she was saying but, it didn’t make any sense. “Come! Bread is meat!” So I went with her to the kitchen where they teach the kids to cook.

Andrea, a girl named Wendy and a boy named Rene were involved with a science fair project. It was fascinating and I didn’t believe it was possible at first. The project was to extract gluten from flour, then concentrate it into a meat substitute. From that, they were going to make soup, stir fried rice and hamburgers.

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