(see Romans 8.18–25). John, like some other early Christian writers, was prepared to see the bread and wine of the eucharist as foretastes of that great moment. Certainly almost all his first readers will have read verses 53–58 in this way. At this point to understand the text more fully requires that we do something: the thing which Jesus himself commanded ‘in remembrance of me’ (Luke 22.19; 1 Corinthians 11.25).
