By Rev. Canon David B. Tabo-oy
v51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If you eat this bread, you will live forever. The bread that I will give you is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live.”
v52This started an angry argument among them. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.
v53Jesus said to them, “I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. v54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day. v55For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink. v56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them. v57The living Father sent me, and because of him I live also. In the same way whoever eats me will live because of me. v58This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate, but then later died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”
v59Jesus said this as he taught in the synagogue in Capernaum. (John 6:51-59)
Last month we heard or read the State of the Nation Address where the president depicted a very progressive state of the country citing a significant reduction of this country’s poor. The address was met with various reactions from elation to unbelief. Sana all. Just recently, the secretary of National Economic and Development Administration (NEDA) told the Senate that those who can afford twenty-one pesos (21.00) per meal are no longer ‘food poor’. This amount, also called the food threshold, is what the government considers as the minimum money that a person needs to meet their basic food requirements. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), a family of five that earns below P9,581 a month is considered “food poor.” That comes out to around P63 per person per day, or P21 per meal. This statement was met with great dispute and disbelief from statisticians and most from the common tao. Sana all. Food is the most important element for humans to survive. It is indispensable. Jesus, being a great preacher known to his down-to-earth parables used this fact several times especially in the gospel of John.
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The gospel lesson this Sunday continues Jesus’ discourse about the Living Bread. It is one of our Lord’s ‘I am’ pronouncements. Jesus made seven “I Am” statements in the Gospel of John, each proclaiming His essence. ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If you eat this bread, you will live forever. The bread that I will give you is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live.” (John 5:51). For the 3rd Sunday in a row, we are faced with a Gospel text that deals with bread and eating. However, this is not a simple repetition of the past two Sundays’ lessons. John is drawing us deeper in the meaning of this “I am the Bread of Life” statement of Jesus. The crowd begins to express their confusion and even disbelief over how Jesus can give his flesh for them to eat.
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In this account of John, our Lord is pointing out something he wants his hearers and us to notice. When the crowd is bothered and confused by Jesus’ claim to give his flesh, he makes an even more offensive statement: they will need to eat his flesh and drink his blood (verse 53). The vocabulary of the text only heightens the scandal. In the end, as I wrote last week, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” This is the living and life-giving bread we partake in the Holy Eucharist – the sacrament established by our Lord himself. So, we make the choice to come to the table every Sunday or whenever the Eucharist is celebrated. Understanding Jesus’ words from this view underscores that the Eucharist is life-giving because it is Jesus who gives it, and it is life-giving because it is Jesus himself who is given. Further, the Eucharist is life-giving because it draws us deeper into relationship with Jesus, so that we may “abide” there (verse 56). There can be no proper understanding of the Eucharist apart from this life-giving participation in the life and the death of Jesus himself.
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I read a true story of a soldier who was severely wounded. When he was out of surgery, the doctors said that there was a good chance for recovery, except that the soldier wouldn’t eat anything. The nurses and nuns tried everything, but he refused all food-drinking only water and juice.
One of his buddies knew why the soldier wouldn’t eat-he was homesick. So, his friend, since the hospital wasn’t too far from the soldier’s home, offered to bring the young man’s father to visit him. The commanding officer approved, and the friend went to the parents’ home. As the father was about to leave for the hospital, the mother wrapped up a loaf of fresh bread for her son.Well, the patient was very happy to see his father, but he still wouldn’t eat-that is, until the father said; “Son, this bread was made by your mother, especially for you”. The boy brightened and began to eat.
I think that you can guess where I’m going with that story. You and I are that boy. We are the ones who have been wounded in the battle of life. We are the ones who’ve been wounded by sin, by trials and pains, by loss and by our forgetfulness of God.We lose our taste for the food that will strengthen our souls. Holy Communion gives us life, spiritual life, God’s life. It gives us spiritual healing and spiritual strength. There was nothing ‘magic’ about the mother’s bread unless, that is, one feels that ‘love’ is magic—which, of course, it is.
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I have been wondering if Jesus was referring to Communion or the Lord’s Supper (on this ‘I Am’ statement), which had not yet been instituted in the New Testament, but soon would be. The reason I say that is because Jesus said, “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:50-51). We see the bread taken at Communion as symbolic of Jesus’ own body given for us so that we might receive eternal life. Every time we partake of the Communion elements (the bread and the wine), we are reminded of Christ’s supreme sacrifice, but also it reminds us that He is coming again. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).
Let us pray.
Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a
sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us
grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work,
and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. (Proper 15 Collect, BCP)**
