The last couple months I have started spending part of my time in the Word by reading it in the local language, and today as I was reading John 6 I was struck by the powerful simplicity of Jesus’ words. First, in verse 48 Jesus describes Himself as the Bread of Life. I have heard this many, many times, but reading it in a second language the images that popped into my mind were different. Bread. Immediately I saw a soft, brown loaf of bread. I realized that while reading the Bible in English, I immediately turned “bread” into another name for Jesus and never took the time to picture what this means. Reading it in a less familiar language, the imagery came alive to me in a beautiful way. He is our Lifesource. We need Him as much--more, in fact!--than we need food.
Wow, how wonderful! I thought to myself, feeling happy and comfortable.
But the next few verses took a sudden turn:
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink…” (John 6:53)
The happy, comfortable feeling disappeared. I experienced something similar to before, like when I read bread, but this time I saw blood--and the imagery was much less pleasant. Eat His flesh? Drink His blood? For the first time, I realized how incredibly strange this sounds when you hear it for the first time. What was Jesus thinking when He said this to the crowd? No wonder nearly everyone deserted Him after He said these things! Was He trying to get people to turn away from following Him?
These thoughts rolled about in my head, forcing me to truly meditate on this story instead of simply moving on and writing it off as something I don’t need to fully understand. I got a glimpse of what it is like to hear these verses as an adult for the first time, and it was shocking. After living in a country where Christians are by far the minority for over 6 months now, I am starting to see how foreign these truths are to my friends here… and how hard it is for them to accept the Bible as true. Though the issue is much more complex than this illustration I am painting, I caught a glimpse of what it might be like to be in their shoes.
I know this isn’t true, but I naively assume at times that once my friends hear the Truth, there is no way they will reject it. It may take time and hard work, but in the end how could they reject the Gospel?
Jesus opened my eyes to see that the Truth is shocking. When He shared Truth, He didn’t try to make it appealing or “easy to swallow”. Instead, He used graphic, almost offensive language and left the rest up to the Holy Spirit. Those who truly wanted to hear stayed, but this was only a small fraction of those Jesus spoke to. Earlier in the chapter Jesus says “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him”--and He proves His point when the entire crowd of followers deserts Him the moment they feel uncomfortable.
From all of this, I drew a couple conclusions:
- If you haven’t grown up hearing these words it is much harder to receive.
- However, if you have grown up hearing these verses, check your heart. Have you attached separate meaning to these words like I did? Have you made what is difficult to swallow more palatable, but in a way that is not scriptural?
No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him, and this is where the true miracle happens: that which is impossible to swallow becomes the sweetest Truth. This is the real, true power of the Gospel, and I am hoping that soon I will see the impossible become possible in my friends' lives here!