John 6:41-51

Gospel according to John 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

Reflections

In this passage, Jesus makes a direct statement about His identity and the essence of His ministry: "I am the bread that came down from heaven." Previously, after the multiplication of the loaves, the crowd witnessed a miracle which they compared to bread that Moses distributed to their ancestors in the desert. Clearly, the miracle was a sign of being a prophet. However, beyond offering bread in a miraculous way, that would signal that Jesus is a Prophet, He now made the assertion that He is more than a prophet. This confused the crowd, who started to grumble and to question: “What does he mean?” Jesus explains that, just like the manna was given, not only by Moses as a sign, but it was more – It was the result of a direct intervention of God in a supernatural way, influencing natural phenomena – A miracle. Jesus points to God. Furthermore, He claims that the bread that He will give is not just bread like the manna, that was worldly bread, but He gives Himself as nourishment as the one sent by the Father and THE Bread descended from Heaven.

This teaching was new, unheard of ever before. Those who thought in earthly terms could not comprehend it. They refused to digest it, literally and symbolically, because they were not ready to see with the eyes of faith. Jesus therefore reassured them a second time: The prophets have never seen the face of God, but He Himself has seen the face of God because He has been sent by God. But those who refuse to believe refute this assertion on the basis of knowing Jesus’ earthly family.

Undeterred, Jesus declares: “I am a living bread that came down from Heaven, and whoever eats this bread will live forever, because the bread that I give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus refers to the sacrifice of His death for the sake of redeeming sinners. However, many in the crowd do not understand what He is referring to and think that He must have lost His reason, or worse, he is sacrilegious. Some think that He is proposing eating human flesh. They find the message inconceivable.

The cornerstone of understanding Jesus’ message is to see it through the eyes of faith. What He is saying is that He is the Son of God, and He is going to offer His earthly body as a sacrifice for the redemption of the world. The bread that He leaves with the Disciples is a mysterious presence of His body in the form of the Eucharist. To the sight, the Eucharist is no more than a thin wafer with a diameter of about 2 centimeters. To the sense of taste, it tastes like a very thin slice of unleavened bread. Only through the eyes of Faith is the mystery of the hidden God, revealed as the Living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, and the God of all the faithful believers.

Faith is a gift of God, which cannot be forced, imposed, or demanded. It opens our hearts, minds, and senses to the possibility of an all-encompassing realm: the Kingdom of Heaven, whose ruler is the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent God in Three Persons, who chose this humble, earthly form as a sign of His love. Whoever receives the Eucharist abides in God and God in them, with the promise of life everlasting, leaving behind earthly imperfections for a glorified, Heavenly body, free from suffering and pain, and much like Jesus’ resurrected, glorified spiritual body. This is why St. Paul states that: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the Man of Heaven.” (1 Cor. 15:49) And St. Paul further exclaims that what has been written will be fulfilled on the last day. “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Cor. 15:54) Therefore, he exhorts us to remain “steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord,” (1 Cor. 15:58) trusting and knowing that in the Lord, our work is never in vain.