LS-46-A Hard Saying

A Hard Saying This is a hard saying; who can hear it.--John 6:60.

There are ruins at Tell Hum, on the northern shores of the Sea Of Galilee, among which are the remains of a synagogue. On the lintel which is still to be seen, a pot of manna is sculptured. It is thought that these ruins may be the remains of the very synagogue in which Jesus delivered His discourse on the heavenly manna, and uttered the hard saying which caused many of His disciples to turn back and walk no more with Him. On the previous day He had fed the multitude with the loaves and fishes. From the other side of the lake where the miracle had been wrought, the people had followed Him hoping for a repetition of the miracle. When the Lord gently reproved them, and urged them to work for the food which abides unto eternal life they demanded a sign as a basis for faith. "Moses," they said, "gave bread from heaven--what do you do for a sign?" They seemed to imply that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was hardly to be compared with the heavenly manna their fathers had eaten in the wilderness. The Master said in reply that He was the true bread. "I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever, yea, and the bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day."

They could not understand that. "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" they protested. He at once made it clear to them that He was speaking in a spiritual sense--they were not to eat His flesh literally. "It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that 1 have spoken unto you are spirit and are life."

Many of His disciples stumbled at His teaching, and withdrew from Him. Probably not even the twelve understood very clearly what He meant. But later they understood. There came an evening, a year later, when Jesus met with His disciples at the passover table. "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and He gave it to the disciples, and said, Take eat; this is My body." Even then perhaps, they might not have understood very clearly, but when his death, which in these mysterious words He had foretold, had been accomplished, and the resurrection had taken place, and Jesus had gone from them in the flesh to abide with them forever, they learned to say: "The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?" This is not a hard saying for us. He gave Himself for the life of the world, as He said, and we take this symbol of the body broken for us, and partake of heavenly food which we receive in communion with Him.