Since the Seventeenth Sunday, we have been reading from John 6 for five consecutive Sundays. Now on this Sunday (21st Sunday), we complete our Sunday Gospel Reading from John 6.
We
have been following Jesus’ discourse on the living bread of life (John 6:26-58)
from the 18th Sunday to the 20th Sunday, upon reflecting
Jesus’ fifth miraculous sign: feeding the great crowd of at least 5,000 by
multiplying the five barley loaves and two fish (John 6:1-15) on the 17th
Sunday. On the 21st Sunday, we reflect how those who had followed
Jesus up to the point of his living bread of life discourse reacted to the Christological
truth revealed in the discourse (John 6:60-69).
The crowd of hungry people kept following Jesus, and he
responded to their needs with compassion because they were like sheep without a
shepherd, feeding them completely by multiplying five loaves of bread and two
fish (Mark 6:33-44; John 6:1-15). Though they were satisfied, they kept
following Jesus with the hope to be fed again.
So, Jesus confronted their motive of following him:
Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking
for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal
life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set
his seal (John 6:26-27).
In fact, this is how Jesus began his discourse on the
living bread of life, first addressing it as the food that endures for eternal
life, to teach them that what they need most is the spiritual food, more than
material food, such as ordinary bread. The reason for this is that ordinary
material food does not entitle us to eternal life but the spiritual food only
given by Christ leads us to eternal life. A key to understand the discourse is
the spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, you would be like the majority
of those who kept following Jesus, rejecting the living bread of life, though
it gives eternal life to be raised from the dead on the last day, because it is
too difficult to understand that eating this bread means eating the living
flesh of Jesus, the incarnated Christ, as reflected in the Gospel Reading of
the 21st Sunday (John 6:60-69).
First, Jesus taught that they must believe in him, as
the necessary condition to understand and appreciate the food that endures for
eternal life (John 6:29). They, then, seemed to have thought the food that
Jesus was about to tell had something to do with manna (John 6:31). To this,
Jesus reminded that the manna was not given by Moses but by the Father, because
the bread of God from heaven gives life to the world (John 6:32-33). So they
asked Jesus to give the bread of God (John 6:34), perhaps, thinking that it is
better than manna. In response, Jesus began to reveal his Christological
identity as the bread from heaven to give life, endures for eternal life, saying:
I am the bread of life; whoever comes to
me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst
(John 6:35).
Jesus was aware, however, that they would not believe
(i.e. John 6:36). Nevertheless, he continued on with his discourse.
Besides the fact that he is the bread of life to cease
hunger and believing in him to quench thirst, Jesus revealed his relation with
the Father, to help them understand why he is from heaven to be the bread from
heaven and that it is the Father’s will to give eternal life to those who
believe in him, as he raise these believers on the last day (John 6:37-40).
Then, realizing that it is Jesus, Joseph’s son, whom
they knew, they grumbled how such an ordinary man be from heaven (John 6:42).
And this was the beginning of their disbelief. But Jesus continued on with his
discourse, saying that those whom he will raise on the last days, those who believe
in him, are drawn to him by the Father, and they are those who obedient to His
teaching (John 6:43-47).
So he repeated:
I am the bread of life
(John 6:48).
And he explained how he, the bread of life, is
different from manna, though both of these are from heaven, sent by the Father:
Your ancestors ate the manna in the
desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that
one may eat it and not die (John 6:49-50).
Then, Jesus revealed the bread of life as the living
bread of life and what it means to eat this bread:
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 (John 6:51).
In
response to the revelation of this truth, those who kept following Jesus said:
How
can this man give us his flesh to eat? (John 6:52).
So Jesus further expounded on what he said:
Amen,
amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his
blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my
blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is
true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my
blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have
life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life
because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your
ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever
(John 6:53-58).
Though they asked Jesus to give them the food that the
bread of God from heaven that gives life (John 6:34), now they reject this life-giving
bread because the truth in this bread is too difficult for them to understand
and accept (John 6:60).
Sensing their problem with his teaching on the living
bread of life, Jesus asks:
Does
this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he
was before? (John 6:61-62).
Since he already told them that he came from heaven as
the bread from heaven to give life to the world, Jesus is challenging them how
they would understand and accept his ascension to heaven when that time comes.
Here Jesus links understanding the living bread of
life to his ascension, because he came down from heaven as the living bread to
give life.
Now, Jesus gives the key to understand the truth in
his discourse on the living bread of life:
It is the spirit that gives life, while
the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life
(John 6:63).
Through these words, Jesus is revealing the truth that the living bread of life, which is his living flesh, is not a merely physical reality but a spiritual one. And this truth is explained by St. Thomas Aquinas through transubstantiation, making physical bread into the body of Christ, the supernatural bread, by the power of the Holy Spirit (Summar Theologiae, IIIa-q75). And St. Ephrem of Syria calls this spiritual bread, in contrast to Passover matza (Hymn on Unleavened Bread XVII, 5-17).
Eating Jesus’ living flesh as the living bread of
life, therefore, is not cannibalism. If it were so, the bread given by Jesus
would not give life, because the flesh per se gives no eternal life. Only the Holy
Spirit does. The fact that the living flesh of Jesus gives eternal life means
that eating his flesh as the living bread of life is not eating his flesh in
the manner of cannibalism. Without the Holy Spirit, unless it is spiritual and
supernatural bread, the bread of life would be like manna, unable to endure for
eternal life. In addition, Jesus also indicates that words that come out of his
mouth are spirit and life. This reminds that we cannot live by bread alone but
words out of God’s mouth (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). It also evokes the
fact that Jesus is the Theos-Logos (Word-God) incarnated in the human
flesh to dwell among us (John 1:1, 14) by the power of the Holy Spirit in Mary’s
womb (Luke 1:35). Therefore, eating the living flesh of Jesus, as the living
bread of life, means to take the Holy Spirit in and the Word in, so that we
have Christ in us, us in him, as the Father is in him, and he in Him (John
14:20), to be one with him (John 17:21), namely becoming one body of Christ,
the living Church (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).
Then, Jesus brings up the necessity of believing again
(John 6:64) and indicates that those who believe are the ones brought to him by
the Father (John 6:65). At this point, many of those who have kept following
Jesus left him and returned to their former lives, forfeiting a possibility of
eternal life, by rejecting the living bread of life, Jesus (John 6:66).
So Jesus asks the twelve disciples of his:
Do you also want to leave?
(John 6:67)
Then, Peter, representing the twelve, answers:
Master, to whom shall we go? You have the
words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are
the Holy One of God (John 6:68-69).
This is a statement of faith, showing that he believes
in Jesus as the holy one of God. In fact, it was also Peter, who proclaimed
Jesus as:
You are the Messiah, the Son of the living
God
(Matthew 16:16).
By affirming his faith in Jesus as the Holy One of
God, the Messiah (Christ), Peter continues to follow Jesus, together with the
eleven other disciples, beyond this point.
In completing his discourse on the living bread of
life (John 6:26-58), Jesus pressed on his twelve disciples if they would continue
to be with him or not (John 6:67), while many of those who had followed him
left, rejecting the truth in the living bread of life, because it was too
difficult for them to understand and accept, because of their disbelief (John
6:66). This suggests that believing in
Jesus, as the living bread of life, which is his flesh to eat for eternal life
to be one with him, is a threshold to be crossed, as the Israelites on the
exodus journey from Egypt had to cross the threshold of Jordan River to enter
the promised land, by renewing their covenant with God, as reflected in the
First Reading (Joshua 24:1-2,15-18). In this reading, Joshua asked the
Israelites if they would remain loyal to the covenant with God or defect to
other gods, pressing on them to make themselves clear, before crossing Jordan
River to enter the promised land. And Jesus demands our answer if we would continue
to journey with him, believing in him and his teaching of the living bread of
life, as his living flesh to eat for eternal life, before entering his Kingdom.
As
the Israelites sustained their life for the promised land through manna (i.e. Joshua 5:12), we
must keep ourselves alive with the living bread of life, as the Sacrament of
the Holy Eucharist, until Jesus returns at the end of time to bring us into his
Kingdom (i.e. Luke 22:16). For this, we must affirm our belief in him and loyalty
with him so that we shall enjoy eternal life in his Kingdom, eating his living
flesh as the spiritual bread of life! And we must be obedient to him, as
reflected in the Second Reading (Ephesians 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32)! In the
meantime, we shall enjoy the goodness of the Lord in the living bread of life,
which is his living flesh, as sung in the refrain of the Responsorial Psalm:
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord (34:9a).
If
we believe in him and obeying his teaching on the living bread of life, we sure
can taste and see the goodness of the Lord in eating his living flesh as the
spiritual food!
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