Eucharist (Part 1)

Well, I tried to write this last night, but it didn't work out as I accidentally pushed the back button. Shame that all that work went to waste. That said, the Eucharist is a very, very large subject (what else would you expect from Jesus?), and I could never even begin to hope I could cover as much as a tenth of all that it encompasses, even were I to devote my entire life to writing about it. I will try to address why it seems to me that the Eucharist must, in truth and very literally, must be the True Body and True Blood of Jesus Christ.

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
Jesus begins the Bread of Life Discourse (found in John 6) in a way which leaves most of his disciples reeling. It starts slowly, with Jesus merely saying that He's the manna from heaven, which already produces a very startled reaction from them. He then proceeds to tell them that "[He is] the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that [He] will give is [His] flesh for the life of the world," which, unsurprisingly, causes them to ask how it could even be possible. He repeats Himself, becoming even more graphic (by saying they must gnaw on His flesh) and that those who do not eat of His flesh and drink of His blood have no life within them. This is about the time when most of disciples leave, saying that "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" Yet, when Jesus asks the Twelve if they, too, will leave, Peter (on behalf of the Twelve) answers, "To whom else shall we go?"

"To whom else shall we go?"
It would make sense that those who followed Jesus would, at some point, receive some sort of hint as to what Jesus meant by needing to eat of His Flesh and drink of His Blood. Indeed, Peter's response even suggests that, though they don't understand, they trust Jesus, and intend to follow Him, and hope they will one day understand. Thus, looking at what the early Church believed regarding the Eucharist ought to be the same teaching the Twelve received, and had passed on. I'll take a look at the historical basis later.

"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you."
This is something which we must take seriously - we can not merely brush aside that Jesus means what he says literally or figuratively - it must be considered deeply, thought over, prayed over - for if Jesus meant it literally, not eating of His flesh (literally) would mean not having life within oneself, and if He meant it figuratively but understanding it to be literal would be a case of idolatry.

"It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail"
Good writing etiquette means including counterarguments... And this is the best I can see in this passage. It is certainly an interesting comment - is this Jesus' way of indicating this discourse He's just had is to be taken figuratively? But to understand it in such a manner would require to ignore the context in which this discourse is given - that of John ("And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory.") and of the gospel in general - the Sacrifice of the Cross was a Sacrifice of the flesh. To discount these words of Jesus as merely figurative just because of these few words would be to deny the sum of the gospel. Rather, it makes far more sense to interpret "the flesh is of no avail" as referring to the desires of the flesh and of the world.

I realize that some of my thoughts are kinda jumbled... This is definitely a work in progress. Leave comments! :D