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 then complained about Him, because He said, "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."

- John 6:41-51

In yesterday's reading, Jesus spoke to the crowds which followed Him to force Him to become king after He had fed them in the wilderness.  Jesus taught them, "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him."  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."  Therefore they said to Him, "What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You?  What work will You do?  Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' "  Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."  Then they said to Him, "Lord, give us this bread always."  And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life.  He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.  But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe.  All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.  This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.  And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, "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."  In Matthew's Gospel, when Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus responds:  "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 16:16-17).  Here, in the consistency of the Gospels, Jesus gives this as a general principle.  He states that "no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him," and asserts the testimony of Scripture:  "And they shall all be taught by God" (Isaiah 54:13, Septuagint).  But then He points to Himself as the One who is from God, and only 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 read, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."  Returning to the themes of the parallels with the Exodus that dominate chapter 6, Jesus declares Himself to be the bread of life, contrasting this bread with the manna of their ancestors in the wilderness.  He begins a deeply Eucharistic teaching regarding Himself as this living bread, which my study bible says reveals the Mystical Supper of the New Testament Church. 

 Jesus has just fed 5,000 men, and more women and children, by multiplying loaves and fishes in the wilderness.  They pursued Him to take Him by force and make Him king, and He evaded Him.  His disciples know that He has walked upon the water of the Sea of Galilee to their boat, as they crossed the Sea in the middle of the night.  The crowds have anticipated Jesus and the disciples, having seen their boats set off, and are now in Capernaum where He addresses them.  So, in addition to the time which they spent with Him in the wilderness, they now have pursued Him across the Sea (really a large lake), and the time has come for a deeper revelation to the public.  Jesus has told them (in yesterday's reading, above), "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life."  The work of God He told them, is faith in Christ.  In today's reading, He goes another step further:  He Himself is the bread who came down from heaven.  They, the crowd, thinks of Moses and the manna in the wilderness.  They expect the Messiah to be one who is like Moses, who restores the fortunes of Israel, who can shake off the Roman Empire and make Israel a great and dominant power, who can feed them even in the wilderness.  But Jesus offers them another plan.  And here is the overriding reality of the Christ who is the bread from heaven -- who has come down from heaven to offer something no one could ever offer:  everlasting life.  There are powerful revelations in today's reading:  that it is the Father who draws us to Christ in faith, who works even in us to bring us to truth, to the Son who is also the human Jesus.  That He offers eternal life.  And moreover, that "the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."  Theologians and saints have given us challenges to consider what these words mean, "for the life of the world," and to consider that Christ will go to the Cross not simply for His own followers, not simply for human beings, but for the life of the world.   That is, for all of the creation, as the Greek word translated as world is not the word meaning merely "earth."  In the Greek, it is cosmos/κοσμος.  That is all of creation, seen and unseen, and everything and everyone in it.  These are things which we can barely grasp in our human imaginations.  For one thing, we don't even know what the entire cosmos really is, nor its limits, nor all the creatures and realities it holds.  But for another, not only will it all be transformed with even more life than before through Christ's Passion on the Cross, but our participation in that very act which is done for the life of the world depends on one thing, our faith.  And that faith is so important that the very Father Himself acts in us to bring us to Christ -- through that "work of God" which is belief in Him.  In the Cross is the intersection of the highest and the lowest, every human heart, by extension all of creation, even to the work of God the Father.  All of it intersects in us that we might participate in it and also participate in this life abundantly He promises, for the life of the world.  We are invited in to work at something which encompasses forces so far beyond ourselves we cannot understand them, but this process is at work deeply within us, and through our faith, will always offer this same life, this capacity to find us another plan. Everything with Christ works unexpectedly.  There will be enormously challenging disappointments (such as that He does not want to be their king), and yet, instead, in that other plan He offers, there is such level and dimension of treasure as we cannot possibly anticipate or imagine.  But one thing will always bear out in our faith experience:  if we come to a dead end, if we exhaust our own understanding and what we already know, Christ will offer us another plan.  In the great and grand understanding of the Lord, there will always be something more, something further He draws us toward -- and this holds true for the challenges in our own lives, for the understanding towards which we can, in faith, grasp.  Let us consider the better deal, the other plan, the greater life He offers this crowd, and know that He is also addressing His words to us, even as we grapple with the same choices on a different day and at a different time in the world.