“Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:53-54). Jesus said that if we eat of His flesh and blood we will have life in us, and we will have eternal life. I don't think He only means that if we partake of the Sacrament and take His name upon ourselves and are faithful and obedient to our covenants and endure unto the end then we will eventually have eternal life. I believe that He also means that when we sincerely and worthily partake of the Sacrament and offer up a broken heart and a contrite spirit and repent of and are forgiven for our sins, then, in that moment, we have eternal life inside of us. We do not have to wait until we are resurrected in the Millennium to begin experiencing eternal life. Every time that we are forgiven, cleansed, and sanctified by eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of the Son of Man, we have eternal life in us. It's a slippery and fiendishly tricky thing to hold onto in this corrupt and fallen world, laboring within the constraints of mortal frailties and weaknesses and the natural inclinations towards rebellion and selfishness as we are, but there is always next week for us to partake of the Sacrament again and have inside us once more Eternal Life and perhaps week after week we can manage to hold onto that eternal life for a little longer each time. I know that as we are faithful we can gain temporary access to all that the Father has while we are in this life here and now. The more often that we partake of the Sacrament, the more completely we can convert our finite life into the Eternal Life we were always meant to possess. I hope that we never miss an opportunity to get just one more taste of eternity as we partake of the Sacrament each week.
