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Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father." From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.
- John 6:60-71
In recent readings, Jesus has fed a multitude in the wilderness from a few loaves and some fish, after which the people wanted to make Him king. He crossed the Sea of Galilee where the crowds followed Him, and taught them to labor not for bread that perishes, but for the bread from heaven that endures to eternal life. He has been teaching on the bread of life -- Himself: "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." Yesterday we read that The leadership in the synagogue 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.
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a
hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that
His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend
you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was
before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there
are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He
said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it
has been granted to him by My Father." From that time many of His
disciples went back and walked with Him no more. My study bible points out here that even His disciples took Christ's teachings on His Body and Blood as a hard saying, and many walked with Him no more. It suggests that to reject Christ's own words regarding the sacramental eating of His Body and drinking of His Blood is to be out of step with His teaching. It's a difficult Mystery; some attempt a rational explanation and some say the words are pure metaphor. But my study bible comments that either extreme is dubious: it's a sacramental teaching and one must accept it in the spirit of Mystery, as a mystical reality. Such a teaching reflects the "witness of Scriptures and the unanimous teaching of the Church throughout history." We note again the hand of the Father that is necessary to faith in Christ, Jesus' remark that "I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been grated to him by My Father."
Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon
Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered them, "Did I not
choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" He spoke of Judas
Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being
one of the twelve. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" But here in John, Jesus asks about their faith: "Do you also want to go away?" In Matthew's gospel, Jesus says that it is the Father who has revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ. But here in John's gospel, Peter's explanation is a very human dependence upon the truth we know: "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." In the Synoptic gospels, Jesus warns them immediately about what is to come -- betrayal, suffering, death, and Resurrection. But here, it's more explicit and also linked to this faith: "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?"
As we have observed in recent readings, everything goes back to the Father. Here, Jesus enforces God the Father's mysterious working in us when He tells the disciples, "No one can come to Me unless it has been granted by My Father." It seems that there is a tremendous linkage between all that happens in Jesus' ministry, and those who gather to Him, and the work of the Father. It remains a Mystery, one more element of the divine at work in this mysterious Kingdom, and yet is linked intimately with us, and in our relationship to Christ. Here, Jesus' reference to the Father is somehow negative in character: those who go away are signs of the Father not having granted something. Elsewhere, this is a positive statement: Jesus exclaims that Peter's confession of faith in Christ was "revealed" to Peter by the Father. Nevertheless, it is here, and the Father is at work in all of this ministry, and in us. We can only assume that the mystery of faith is present to us in the same way: the Father's work is in all of it. Where Christ is, so is the Father, and the Spirit. And I think that when we read about this ministry, these first human beings who gather to Christ, we have to consider it happening in our time as well. All these elements are present. And yet, because we are speaking about Mystery and the divine, this reality is also 'outside time' in other ways as well. Christ has completed His mission, and it was a mission not only to those present in His time and place, but to all people of all times and places -- those "in the tombs" and those to come. There is no limit to this ministry. And what that means is that the saving work of Christ is complete and present to us all. Our freedom is in our choice. As has been stated by Jesus in this chapter of John's gospel, the work that remains to be done by us is just faith. As in Peter's confession here, the work that's really to be done in order to work the works of God is simply faith in the One given by the Father. Then they said to Him, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of
God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that
you believe in Him whom He sent" (John 6:28-29). We've already been saved, that's the work of Christ, and He's completed His mission. Our work is to have faith. But His whole mission is defined and structured by the Father, and that link is also within us. And there we come to the great sacramental teaching of today's reading, the linkage with His mystical body and blood. As my study bible says, I don't think it befits anyone to rationally explain how such a divine Mystery happens, because we're not talking about the reality of "this world" of apples and oranges, so to speak. Jesus' shocking words, the "hard saying," reflect a divine reality, present to us in this world, in which we are totally and completely dependent on the words of eternal life, as Peter puts it, and also on the fullness of His saving mission, in which He will give His flesh and blood for us. It is something beyond what we can easily understand. It requires a kind of faith that we can participate in Mystery, that God -- Father, Son, and Spirit -- does the work, but we participate via faith. And that in itself is a great Mystery whose workings I cannot explain. We can, however, see its effects. As Jesus explains in John's chapter 3, when He says to Nicodemus, comparing the Spirit to the wind: "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot
tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone
born of the Spirit" (John 3:8 NIV). In today's reading, Jesus teaches: "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." It is with the Spirit that we understand what He teaches and what He does. We don't direct this process, and rational explanations just don't quite cut it, try as hard as we might. But we can see its effects in us and in others. We have a whole history of the body of the Church and its effects in the world and on the world to look toward. We know where Christ leads by experience, even if we cannot explain it all. Our work is the work of faith, and this is the Father's work in us as well. We are bound up in that Mystery, and we must accept that this is so, that Jesus' work of saving mission is complete, but that we can feel and understand its effects alive and at work in us and among us. We are bound up in Mystery as deep as any depth we can name, and yet it is also a living part of us, and of this world in the elements of bread and wine -- as deeply bound with our own lives as food of any kind we need. Let us remember that which we are a part of, and which is a living part of us. That life is in His word, and how that word takes root in us. As Peter says, He is the Son of the living God.
