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²⁷ Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 

³⁵ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ³⁶ But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 

³⁷ All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰ For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁴¹ So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” (John 6:29-41)

This teaching (if truly heard) will cause our religious hearts much trouble: “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (v.66). Like a sifter, this teaching strains out experiential knowledge from religious belief.

1. The Bread of Life discourse reveals two patterns of consumption: physical (surface) & spiritual (depth).
2. The confusion of the audience IS not comprehending spiritual consumption. This sets up the “Catcher’s Mitt passage.” (more on this later)
3. Note: (This passage is not about the practice of communion nor does it preclude it. The sacrament of communion didn’t exist yet, this is prior to the upper room and there was no religion yet.)
4. Re-read the passage and pay attention to those who have confusion:

“Whoever feeds on 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. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (v.54-56)

The literal (surface level) mind cannot understand this, and this is the pivoting point for two patterns of consumption.

Physical consumption: Eating is a requirement for life and existence. Food is sustenance, and we transform it as it transforms us. Our bodies break it down, and destroy its form, in order to extract everything in it that is suitable for sustaining life. This is the Christological metaphor to which Jesus is pointing. His body will be broken down, transformed, so that its healing and sustaining power can be accessed by those who hunger and thirst for God. “I am the bread…that has come down from heaven.”

Obviously, when Jesus says we must “eat his flesh and drink his blood” (v.53) he’s not advocating a cannibalistic zombie apocalypse. To conflate this teaching with “transubstantiation” is to miss the spiritual trajectory of Jesus teaching just as those who thought he was telling them to eat his body.

Spiritual Consumption: The Catchers Mitt… “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (v.37) After marinading in this for weeks, my conclusion is that the religion of Christianity has misunderstood Jesus’ words, making salvation only for the religious few, and when we repatriate them to their proper context, the religious mind acts just as it did when Jesus said these words.

So what is the spiritual truth that Jesus wants us to consume? How are we to consume it? We consume Christ by experiencing deeply his life IN and AS our very lives and allowing His life-giving nutrients to not only transform us, but to transform us into Him. The Catchers Mitt.

Jesus says three times he would “raise him (it) up on the last day”(v.39, 40, 44). This is to substantiate his claims that “all” who “eat/experience” this “bread of life” will never die. Everyone is eternal. This is the essential teleology (trajectory) of Jesus’ I AM statement. If we miss this, we miss the whole thing. The Catchers Mitt is understood best by the nuances of the Greek.

“All (pán–every, each, any, total, every kind) the Father (dídosin–gives, produces, appoints, experiences) me, will (ħzei–arrive, happen, be here, come) to me.” Transliterated it reads: “Everyone the Father lets experience (life) will come to experience me, and (all) those coming, I will not (ékbálo-throw out, turn away).”

The religious mind has a binary pattern of consumption and remains in confusion when things are not spelled out in black and white terms. These cannot accept that the Messiah is both God AND a man. Sit with this. These are also the people who “read into” this passage both “innies” and “outies” and who insist “ALL” doesn’t mean “ALL.” (go back to the teleology)

Let me try and apply this in a helpful way.

Everyone consumes food for the physical aspects of life. No one questions this. It is universally true for all who have ever lived. Yet when it comes to consuming spiritual food for eternal life, religion steps and controls access. Yes, differences appear regarding our hunger and thirst for God, but at closer inspection, we discover that our hunger for God is confused with wanting a million other things. Our appetites on the surface, mask our appetite for the depth dimension. Just as we all possess physical appetites, so we also possess spiritual appetites (though confused).

Imagine someone reading a recipe online for Infinite Reality. They are confused about how it might taste and cannot summon even a hint of possible experience. If that person were holding the finished product and not the recipe, then experience is eminent. Literally everyone who lives (confused or not) “IS” a spiritual life holding the finished product. “God gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” (Acts 17:25) Jesus invitation to come and consume Him, is to experience being transformed into Him NOW while the food is ready. It’s an invitation not to wait for our deaths when reality as we see it, gives way to reality as it actually is.

The teaching is NOT that some will pick Jesus because those are the ones God wills to be saved, nor that a religious guy in tall hat has the power to turn crackers into Jesus’ bones and eating them saves us. Instead, all that come to Jesus (even those who come only because they ate physical bread) are all consuming the life of Christ as we each live our lives. It’s not to come and do something, but to stop are realize by living, we already are doing something. Confusion only lasts until experience displaces it.

When Jesus says: I AM the Bread/Food of life, He’s announcing that the recipe that has been promised is now ready to be enjoyed, for the re-building of your life. Religions focus on the recipe, but like Moses’ manna, we will eat and die. The True food of Christ is here and ready to be experienced not in a religion, but in the experience of life. All experience is a spiritual experience since the physical is sustained by the spiritual. Each moment of life is the consummation of our eminent God, and not a single one of us will go through life and avoid God. The gift is to see Christ as the Bread of Life and to alter our pattern of consumption, which is to see Christ in all things and joyfully be transformed by all things into Christ.

That’s true salvation. A salvation in love, in and through Christ as our very life. If we prefer the food of religion, it’s likely we too will walk away from Jesus.