This morning’s Gospel is
taken like those from the two previous Sundays from the extended discourse in
John’s Gospel on the Bread of Life which follows the miraculous feeding of the
Five Thousand. But, you may say, not this again, we’ve got the point, it’s time
to move on, we understand; to which one may counter that what we are dealing
with here is not something to understand, but rather something to experience.
In the Book of Proverbs we
see Wisdom, who in the Christian tradition is identified with Christ, the Word
made Flesh, issuing an invitation: she has built a house, the Church, she has
hewn seven pillars, the sacraments, the means of God’s grace to be active in
our lives, and the people of God are called to eat and drink, to live, and to
walk in the way of insight, that is in following Jesus Christ. The New is prefigured
in the Old, and the Hebrew Scriptures point to, and find their fulfilment in Jesus
Christ, who is the Wisdom of God, and the Word made Flesh.
Likewise St Paul advises
the church in Ephesus not to behave in a worldly manner, but to put God at the
centre of our lives. He ends by invoking the names of the three persons of the
Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in a context of worship, of praise of
the Almighty, as that is what we as Christians are supposed to do, to love God
and to serve him, through prayer and worship, through entering into the mystery
of the Three in One, to be caught up in the outpouring of divine love, and to
have a foretaste of it here on earth.
After feeding the Five
Thousand in John’s Gospel, a sign of the generous nature of God’s love for
humanity, Jesus embarks upon an extended discourse upon himself as the Bread of
Life. John’s account of the Last Supper focuses on Christ washing the
disciples’ feet, and their obeying Christ’s example and commands. There is no
institution narrative, instead the Eucharistic teaching in John’s Gospel is
centred around Jesus’ explanation in Chapter 6, so that a long time before
Jesus’ suffering and death we can see what it is all about. It’s a process
which starts with John the Baptist at the start of the Gospel, where he sees
Jesus and says, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’
(Jn 1:29) The Lamb points to Passover and the freedom of the people of God,
freedom from sin and its effects.
Jesus begins the last
section of his teaching with the bold claim that ‘I am the living bread that
came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live for ever; and the
bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ These are some
extraordinary claims to make, they would have sounded shocking to a first
century Jew, and some two thousand years later they still sound shocking, and
yet the offering of Christ’s body for the sins of the world as a propitiatory
sacrifice which is re-presented, made present again and offered to God the
Father upon the altars of the church, is what the church is for, it is what we
are for.
It is done so that we may
have life in us, and have it for eternity, so that we may share in the pledge
of eternal life given to us in Christ, who will raise us up forever with Him.
Such is the nature of God’s love for us: it is freely given, we do not earn it,
we do not deserve it; it is something given to us, so that by it, and through
it, we may become something greater, something better than we are.
Such is the power of God’s
sacrificial love at work in our lives; such is the treasure which we have come here
to receive, if it were ordinary food then we would eat it, and it would become what
we are, our flesh and blood; but instead we who eat it become what it is, the Body
and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we share in His
divine life, we are healed by His divine love, by his sacrifice the wounds of sin
and division are healed so that humanity, made in the image of God might be ransomed,
healed, restored, and forgiven by God, to live to his praise and glory.
Such wonderful news is truly
worth pondering and considering in detail given its potential effects in our lives,
so that bit by bit we are slowly and sure becoming more Christ-like, fed by Him,
fed with Him, and encouraging others so to do so that the world may believe and
give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be
ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and
power, now and forever.
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