John 6:61-62. But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?"

Jesus poses these questions to His disciples as they are grappling with the Bread of Life discourse. "Offense" is an interesting word choice, I think. The disciples are trying to wrap their heads around what Jesus could possibly mean when He says He is the Bread which came down from heaven and anyone who eats this Bread will live forever (John 6:58). How can they possibly eat Jesus' body and drink His blood? Why would He want them to do that? As they try to figure these things out, Jesus apparently knew some of them were offended. Where did that offense come from? Was it because the idea of eating flesh and drinking blood is so off-putting? I am sure it was that, in part, but that is not so much offensive as weird. I also think it may have had something to do with our understanding of reality, and our inability to think of Jesus as being able to do more, and be in more places, than it seems possible for a human body to do. Jesus will ascend into heaven in His Body, but He will also remain with us especially when we partake of the Eucharist. That seems to offend the laws of reality as we understand them, and that can be very hard to accept.

In the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus tells His disciples that He is Bread and that we must eat Him. This will not be fully explained until the Last Supper, but He is getting his disciples ready to start thinking about His Spirit being with them always and His Body ascending into heaven, but also remaining with them when they consecrate the bread and wine as He will show them to do. It is too much for them to now understand, they don't have the full picture, but without these preparatory words they would be at a total loss when the Last Supper occurs. Jesus does not want them to be offended then, so best to get the offending thoughts dealt with now, so when the time comes they can be fully focused on what He is doing. They need to start thinking about things differently and not be offended by the idea of Jesus coming into the bread and wine, and those things actually becoming the flesh and blood of Christ (and how good is God to us that knowing we would balk at eating human flesh, He comes to us in a form we eat every day?).

When Jesus ascends into heaven His disciples will remember back to this moment when He asked them to think about Him doing so, and they will realize that He is still with them forever in the Eucharist. They would not have context for this without the Bread of Life Discourse and Jesus' urging to think of how they will feel when they see Him ascend. God prepares us for everything, even when we do not understand at the time what He is doing. If we find His teachings or words offensive, that is only because we do not yet fully understand. We should just wait and trust, knowing that we will eventually understand, and remember there is nothing offensive in God.