Water To Wine: Some of My Story

by Brian Zahnd

It is significant that Jesus never softens the scandal of his invitation by saying, “I mean symbolically.” No, Jesus just keeps intensifying his eucharistic theology by saying, “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (John 6:55–56). Even when many disciples complained, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (John 6:60), Jesus doesn’t relent. And what was the result? “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him” (John 6:66). This abandoned discipleship is sad, but for Jesus, the idea that his followers would feed on his flesh and drink his blood was a nonnegotiable. If we try to remove the scandal of a robust eucharistic theology by reducing it all to mere symbol, we are doing the very thing Jesus refused to do.