The Heart of the Bread of Life
"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!"
The Lord's Bread of
Life Discourse in John 6 has a formidably steep progression of divine Eucharistic
teaching - each bite becomes more and more substantial, heartier, fleshier.
Starting with just the crowd's renewed physical appetite, Jesus adeptly leads
them to ponder how to start working for the Food that remains unto life
eternal. When the crowd first reminisces about the magnificent miracle of manna
in the desert, Jesus suggests that He is leading up to something even greater
than that, even linking belief in Him with eternal life, and resurrection on
the last day.
But the crowd,
which had initially been eagerly devouring all the Lord's words, suddenly
started to choke on them, and have trouble stomaching how such a full meal deal
could be cooked up by just Jesus. And so they began gnawing and grumbling and
murmuring at His words. But rather than apologetically deboning His earlier
servings, Jesus actually piles on an even meatier helping, favorably
contrasting His "Bread of Life" recipe with the manna of old which,
however miraculous and nutritive, nonetheless simply couldn't starve off death.
For in contrast, Jesus is prepared to fill the plate with so much more, saying
"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!" Notice the future tense. Earlier, speaking to the same people,
Jesus attested, "My Father gives you the True Bread from Heaven."
"Gives", "is giving" - right at that moment, present tense!
That was the reality, that was the correct verb form for that moment, for God
the Father was indeed actively engaged in giving His Son at that moment to
those disciples there in Capernaum. But that present moment was not the chosen
time for Jesus to give His flesh for the life of the world - that momentous
moment would come a year later, at the Last Supper. Hence, the future tense.
Now, of all the
hard sayings Jesus serves up in His Bread of Life discourse, this Chapter Six
of the Gospel of St. John, the most scandalous was that shocking climax: the
Bread of Life, of which He spoke, was His very flesh for the life of the world!
So, it's no wonder that the Jews were a bit burned - no longer just murmuring
under their breath, but militantly quarreling aloud about His incredible claim!
Had our Lord merely been speaking metaphorically, allegorically, or
figuratively, He certainly would have realized His obligation to clarify the
natural "misunderstanding" that had arisen among His listeners.
But instead of
apologizing for stretching the poetic license, Jesus reconfirms the literalism
of His words, insisting "My Flesh is true food, and My Blood is true
drink." And the Bread of Life is not just intended as some exotic gourmet
intended only for the elite, for "unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of
Man and drink His Blood, you do not have life within you." And the word
"to eat" here, in the original New Testament Greek, is bold and vivid
- almost could be translated "to munch," to literally feed on that
Flesh of the Son of Man!
How can this Man
give us His Flesh to eat? For those who don't believe in His divinity, the
words of Jesus will forever be spit out as tasteless hyperbole. But for those
who recognize Jesus as the true Son of God, for those who eat His Body and
drink His Blood, the Lord's words of life are joyfully digested as the recipe
for the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, the true Bread come down from Heaven,
having within it all sweetness!