Weird cont...
Sunday, 12. February 2006, 12:05:39
In a fascinating way this weirdness is underscored in the Fourth Gospel by the discourse *Jn 6:22-71* that follows the feeding and the walking on the water. The next day, as John has it, the crowd finally catches up with Jesus at Capernaum on the other side of the lake.
They, too are puzzledspecifically by the fact that Jesus seems to have made the crossing without using the only available boat.
Rabbi, when did you get here?Jesus response adds to their confusion; he first launches into a petulant comment on the unworthiness of their motives in seeking him; then, in reply to their plausible, even sincere, questions, he indulges himself in a series of progressively more obscure answers.
What they really want, as John has already noted, is to make him king; but they also hope that he will claim for himself the kind of kingship they have in mind.
Our fathers ate manna in the desertobviously expecting that he will pick up on the lead & come out with a punch line characterizing his messiahship as an updated version of the kind of plausible, interventionist salvation they know & love.
But Jesus gives them nought for their comfortHe tells them not only that Moses didn't give them bread from heaven but that the true bread from heaven is
one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the worldThe rest of the dialogue proceeds in the same way:
they ask sensible, leading questionsand
Jesus gives weird non-responsive answers
- He promises resurrection at the last day
- he reaffirms that he is the living bread from heaven
- then he adds that the bread he will give is his flesh
- he ends with the assertion that unless they eat his flesh
- and drink his blood, they cannot have life in themselves
Finally, not only the crowd but also many of Jesus' disciples
simply go away and no longer walk with himIn short, references to flesh & blood, he has broached the subject of the death of the Messiah
and the weirdness of it allhas simply put them off. Even the 12, who do in fact remain with him, stay on only in a dumb and desperate
to whom can we go???kind of way.
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