1 Kgs 19:4-8
Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Eph 4:30-5:2
Jn 6:41-51
You know television shows – especially ones with an intricate plot and cliff hanger endings usually like to review what had happened the weeks before to keep the viewer up-to-date with what they are about to show. It’s great because those shows usually come on once a week and you don’t remember all the details of what happened last week. I sometimes have problems remembering what happened yesterday so I know it’s always a good idea to review what has happened so we can focus on what is happening now.
So we are now in our third week of the “Bread of Life Discourse” in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. The first week had the feeding of the 5,000 with the loaves and fishes. The second week or last week the crowd followed Jesus to Capernaum where He told them that they were looking for Him not because they wanted to learn from Him but because they wanted a free meal. Jesus told them to look for the bread that comes down from heaven. Next week we will get to the real meat of Jesus’ “bread of life discourse” and flesh out those details. [see what I did there?] The week after that we will have the epilogue and the aftermath of Jesus’ words. For this week however, we see how Jesus raises the ante and we are left with a nice little cliff hanger at the end.
So the last thing Jesus said last week was: I am the bread that came down from heaven. Okay…..? Because we are used to singing “I am the Bread of Life” and “One Bread, One Body” it seems no big deal for Jesus to say I am the bread…. You would think that the crowd would make a fuss about Jesus comparing Himself to bread. But they didn’t because they took it to be a metaphorical understanding. He has made these kinds of claims before: I am the vine, you are the branches. I am the Good Shepherd, I am the Gate. So it wasn’t unusual for Jesus to make a claim that He was bread. They got that. However, they begin to question His parentage; because if you remember last week He started talking about His Father. Well everyone in town knew that His daddy was Joseph and that he was a carpenter. So the crowd was really murmuring about Him claiming that He was the bread come down from heaven. [“What is he – some kind of space man? This is crazy talk… we know His mother and father…. they have that nice little hut with the white picket fence on Nazareth street.”]
Jesus knows that they are murmuring but doesn’t address it – He is on a roll. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. His Father sent Him to draw people to the Father. These words are profound. He at once makes a distinction between His earthly foster Father: Joseph, and His heavenly Father – and that this heavenly Father draws all people to Himself through His Son: Jesus. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. I have always wondered about this confusing circular language that John’s Gospel uses (I in He, He in I, He is me and I am Him). However, if you are trying to express the infinite mystery of the Trinitarian Godhead with either the written or spoken word, it doesn’t matter if you are Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, or Ernest Hemingway, you are gonna have a tough time doing it.
When Jesus refers to the Father sending Him we recall the Incarnation: the Word made Flesh. The Father – God – reveals Himself through His Son – the Word made Flesh. We now see a tangible reality something that we can somewhat comprehend and engage. The love of the Father is so strong that He sends His Son to us to show us the way to the Father.
Our part then is to believe in the One whom the Father sent: Amen, amen I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. That seems easy enough right? The first step for us is to believe in Jesus Christ, who came down from heaven and was made flesh – to believe in everything that He says. If He said that He is the vine, we believe He is the vine. If He we are the branches, we are the branches. [If He said He is a carrot, we believe He is a carrot.] But He says to us, I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died…I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
Jesus reiterates this statement once again, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. I am the bread of life. He’s repeating it because the next thing He says will really blow the crowd away. They had enough trouble with believing that He had a Father that was not Joseph. 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.” The bread that I will give my flesh for the life of the world?!
Okay…? [Jesus has officially left the reservation!!] Imagine what the crowd is thinking right now: “Okay we can understand that He is metaphorical bread that gives life. We can maybe understand that yesterday you just fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes that you might be somebody who knows a thing or two about the divine and that you *might* be greater than Moses – maybe, just maybe but we have some serious doubts. We are really having trouble with the fact that you are saying that you are the Son of God, that Joseph is not your father and that you came down from heaven and that you are equating yourself with God – cause you know, that’s blasphemy. And now…. You are saying that this bread that comes down from heaven – you – will be given for the world to eat – your flesh as bread for the life of the world. There is no way we are going to believe that this metaphorical bread that you are talking about is your actual flesh. Jesus you have bitten off more than you can chew!!
If you can imagine this statement after this kind of build-up and context, you can only imagine what would have happened if Jesus had not said and done all those things these past two weeks. We are human beings living in a linear temporal space, we take things in one thing at a time and cannot even begin to comprehend this wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff . Our Lord feeds us only with the amount that we can handle; St. Irenaeus said “He [Christ] might easily have come to us in his immortal glory, but in that case we could never have endured the greatness of the glory. Therefore it happened that he, who was the perfect bread of the Father, offered himself to us as milk [because we were] like infants.” You know, those who receive Holy Communion on the tongue should really ponder this when they receive: we are being fed like infants – like my baby niece and some spaghetti, she gets more on her face and on the wall behind her than in her mouth when she tries to feed herself – when one receives on the tongue they are reminded that they are totally dependent upon God to feed and sustain them.
Our Lord indeed gives us Himself, the living Bread of Life, as food to sustain us and keep us going. If Elijah journeyed forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God from the bread and drink of angels, how much more could we go on with the Eucharist?! We often do not realize how awesome this gift is – that God has come down from heaven, He has given us His flesh for us to consume so that we may be joined together with Him: Taste and see the goodness of the Lord, the Responsorial Psalm says, I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall be ever in my mouth. The mouth that receives the most Holy Eucharist should also be the mouth that offers praise and thanksgiving to Him for all His manifold blessings. And following the example of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – to be imitators of God, as beloved children, to live in love as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us. I pray that we our sacrifice of praise would be worthy before the Lord that we go to Him with a child-like manner, that we can love each other as Christ loved us: offering ourselves to God as a fragrant aroma before the Lord.
NB: Wednesday is the Feast of the Assumption. It is a Holy Day of obligation. The ASSUMPTION is that you are going to be there! =)
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