Numero Seis

I just finished reading Chapter Six. As usual, here are my thoughts:

1. It's interesting to me how, at the start of his ministry, Jesus is very conscious of getting away from people. He performs the miracle of feeding the five thousand, and when they return to find him, he's retreated to a mountain. The specific wording is "Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself."

Jesus never wanted to be a king. At least in the worldly sense. He wasn't sent here to rule a country.

But after this whole reclusive bit, as soon as the crowd clears he walks on the water. Hmm. Thoughts?

2. This next bit is possibly one of the hardest to get my head around. "Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum."

To the average person, especially at that time, it would seem as though Jesus is teaching canibalism. I know that he's speaking metaphorically, but this is tough.

3. At the end, I get this kind of disappointment in John's writing. "Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)" Why did John spoil the plot? Ha ha. If I had wanted to keep peoples' attention, I wouldn't have added this parenthetical spoiler. It's like "Crap! John, why'd you give it away?!"