"HIDE THE BEER THE PASTOR'S HERE!!!"

Re: Drink up and cheers:

Re: John 6:53  “unless you drink His Blood…you have no life in you.”

“Let’s look at this from another angle. If I were to say.’Wittenberg beer quenches thirst. Annaberg beer also quenches thirst,’ then I don’t exclude other beers. But it would be very different if I were to say,’If you don’t drink Wittenberg beer, no other beer will quench your thirst.’ In the same way, Christ doesn’t speak in the affirmative here. He excludes everything else…if we despise His flesh, nothing else will prove helpful.”

“No matter what anyone else says, this passage is clear.”    --Martin Luther

Way too clear for most of us---and most of His marginal disciples then, as well. Many “left off following Him” after this declaration. Talk about auto-weeding tares in the wheat!!!

According to the go-spell of Mr. Clemens noted yesterday, we do indeed have the basic facts about Jesus, not only from Matthew et al but from Genesis to Isaiah to Josephus. The distortions and contortions mankind goes through to attempt to defeat, declaw, or at least neutralize the simplicity of not only the Gospels but of Jesus’ actual words, are appalling indeed to observe—and there is no neutral ground; and, no, we are not here speaking of armies or politics or economics or any other form of reality-on-the-surface; mistaking tastes or personal preferences for the Reality that is utterly “other” but at the same time touching the very core of our hearts and souls—if we value them at all, of course.

The story and the spine of the world is, “Immanuel”, “God with us.”  Have we become so spineless that even the name of Christ can only be mentioned in “society”,--- high, low,  or median---except in the most profane and disrespectful sense—observing so strictly and totally the “don’t ask don’t tell” unwritten policy that the world despises about everything else except Jesus?