The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life

 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 cane 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

Yesterday we read that the leaders in the synagogue 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 cane 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 comments that even His disciples took Christ's teaching on His body and blood as a hard saying, and many walked with Him no more.  As we observe several times throughout this text, John's Gospel does not shy away from misunderstandings of Christ's words, and His offering of teachings that are puzzling and hard for people to accept and grasp.  My study bible adds that there remain those who reject Christ's words concerning the sacramental eating of His body and drinking of his blood, and thus do not accept this teaching.  It notes that because of the difficulty of grasping the depth of this Mystery, many attempt either to define its nature rationally or to explain away Christ's words altogether, giving them a purely metaphorical meaning.  Either extreme, it says, is dubious.  To reject this sacramental teaching is to reject the witness of the Scriptures and the unanimous teaching of the Church throughout history.  Strikingly, Christ begins to refer to His betrayal, and uses it as another affirmation of the will of the Father, and the role that plays in our faith.

 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.  Here is the incident of Peter's confession of faith in John's Gospel.  Peter tells the truth from his heart when he makes his confession:  "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life."  Here as Peter's confession is given in John, Jesus immediately remarks upon the one close disciple -- one of the twelve -- who will betray Him.

"Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life."  Peter's words are stunning in the stark truth of what he says.  Indeed, there are those of us who cannot imagine a more true statement, even after two thousand years of history in between now and the time that they were said.  To whom shall we go?  Where else do we hear such words of eternal life?  From whom else would we hear them?   Peter's honest response reminds us of the words of the apostles who encountered a stranger on the road to Emmaus, later realizing that the stranger was Christ, saying, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32).  Indeed, that passage from Luke is linked to today's passage and its message of the Eucharist, in the "hard saying" of Jesus, as the apostles recognized Christ as He sat at the table with them, and He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight (see Luke 24:28-35).  Christ remains the One, the unique Person who has the words of eternal life, and whose life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension we commemorate as sacrament.  That is, He gave His life as the human Jesus for all of us -- and in so doing, His very death became transformative, offering us eternal life with Him.  He offered His death on the Cross so that our lives might be transformed with the eternal life that overcomes death.  This eternal life, and Christ's words of eternal life -- the words that are spirit, and they are life -- do not merely indicate a kind of survival of life after death in this world.  They indicate a gift that is present here and now for each of us.  They indicate the gift of the indwelling of Christ, as He said in yesterday's reading (above), that He abides in us and we in Him.  In today's reading, He also speaks of the Spirit who is life, giving us the light of an even deeper understanding which was brought to the early Church.  In the left-hand column of this blog, we may read a comment on John's Gospel by Cyril of Alexandria:  "The light of God is the grace that passes into creation through the Spirit, by which we are refashioned to God through faith" (Commentary on the Gospel of John 3.5).  John's Gospel introduces us in chapter 3 to the work of the Spirit in Christ's words to Nicodemus, and here in today's reading, we must pay attention to Christ's teaching about the Spirit and life -- and how the Spirit works together with the Father to bring us to the Son.  These are ever-present realities, not something meant only to be understood as a kind of carrying over of life after death.  The words which St. Peter cites are those which live for us, which the Son of Man have given us and speak to us now and whenever we need to hear them.  It is the Spirit who continues to give life, to illuminate Christ's words at times when they will inspire and give us direction, answer questions, and show us the way to go.  It is the Spirit who gives us light so that we may grow more to be like Christ.  These are living realities, the life in abundance we are offered here, today, as we dwell in this world as human beings as He did.  Let us remember who gives us these living words, the words that are Spirit and life, and which still contain a depth of truth and light which only He gives.