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The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven -- not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever." These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
- John 6:52-50
In Saturday's reading, we were told that the leadership then complained about Jesus, because He taught in the temple at Capernaum, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." And they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus therefore answered and said to them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."
The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. We remember that in John's Gospel, the term "the Jews" most often refers to the religious authorities. My study bible suggests: "Christ was crucified in the flesh and His blood was shed on the Cross, and on the third day He was raised in a glorified state. We receive the grace of Christ's sacrificial offering by coming to Him in faith and by receiving Holy Communion in faith. In Communion, we truly eat His flesh and drink His blood, and this grants the faithful eternal life, with Christ abiding in us and us in Him." Hilary of Poitiers wrote, "There is no room left for any doubt about the reality of His flesh and blood, because we have both the witness of His words and our own faith. Thus when we eat and drink these elements, we are in Christ and Christ is in us."
"As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven -- not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever." These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum. Jesus speaks here about a relationship of total dependence. He is dependent on the Father for His very life, and in this "eucharistic" relationship, in which our very food is comprised of His substance, so we gain a life beyond our understanding. Actually in the Greek, the words translated here as "live forever" literally mean "live to the age." What we are hearing is about an eternal age to come, a "time" when this world is transformed by the life He gives into an abundant life we can only imagine. But that "eternal life" is dependent on Christ who is the bread, the food, just as He is dependent upon the Father for His life.
On today's passage, my study bible points out that John never reports the details of the Last Supper such as those found in Luke 22:19-20, but instead, he reveals the significance and truth of these events (events that were already known to his hearers) by reporting here Christ's own words. This mystical reality is revealed in this Gospel in the ways in which Jesus speaks of dependence and relationship. Our lives are added to by His life, just as His live is sustained by the "living Father." It's really amazing how this depth of relationship is portrayed in John; this Evangelist gives us at once the mystical reality of Christ into which Jesus invites us: into relationship with the Father and the Son, a relationship characterized by its interdependent nature. Jesus, as the bread of life, is that food that adds life to us, life to our lives, and promises that through the bread of heaven we will live to the age: in an eternal time where "life in abundance" truly manifests in fullness. The message is always life, life itself, the mysterious substance that comes from the Father, through the Son, and links and embraces us as we are fully dependent upon it. It's a mistake, I think, to speak about "spiritual life" although we are talking about the bread from heaven. But just as Jesus is God in the flesh, Incarnate, so the essence of our understanding of the "bread of heaven" must be that this is life that increases life in all ways in us, that informs life in every form in our own lives. To speak of "spiritual life" would be to split this life in ways that are inappropriate from all the life in us: mental, spiritual, physical, emotional. It's the same as loving with God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength: whatever life we have is fully enhanced by the bread of heaven into a greater life, even as we await the life in the age to come, the fullness of transfiguration. What we can understand is the depth of this life added to our life in dependence on Christ through faith, right in the here and the now. There are times when our faith adds such beauty to our understanding of life, and joy, and peace that doesn't really make sense, and a kind of confidence that surpasses our own "meager resources." This is a life that revives hope when there is no hope, and provides a way when there seems to be no way. It helps us cope with life when it's limited by pain or toil; it gives us mission when we lose our purpose. This kind of dependence is the difference between a sort of limitation of life to our own strengths, and opens up the doors to what is beyond us, that which helps us in ways we can't call "our own" alone, giving us added life to what we have and transforming who we are. That is the bread of life and what it does for us, helping us to overcome what limits and disappoints in this world.
