The primary focus is on the
broken body and spilled blood of Jesus that is given over in order to give life
to and nourish the world. But the language is also eucharistic in nature,
evoking Mark 14:22–25 and 1 Corinthians 11:23–28. The discourses in chapters
13–17 suggest that being nourished and sustained by Jesus, while including the
Eucharist, does not exclude many other aspects of the Christian life (vv.
53–57). One must assimilate Jesus as one would food, allowing his life-giving
presence to become the very fiber of one’s being. In the context of the
Passover, in which Jews celebrate God’s gift of the manna in the desert, Jesus
claims to transcend and perfect even this gift. (Scott M. Lewis, “The
Gospel according to John,” in New Testament, ed. Daniel Durken [The New
Collegeville Bible Commentary; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2009],
331, emphasis in bold added)