 |
|
The bread of life
|
|
| John 6, 32-69 |
|
| |
|
| The words so often called “the speech on the Bread of life” were attributed to Jesus by John after Jesus allowed the crowd who was following him to eat to their hearts content. These words were not well accepted by those who listened, and it is not easy in our days. Taken by the word, it is difficult to swallow: |
|
| |
|
 |
“ I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever, and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh”. |
|
|
| |
|
| We do react like the Jews at that time: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” And Jesus continues” Yes in reality, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and you drink his blood, you will have no life. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” Taken literally and out of its context, really it is “hard” to take and we can understand that many disciples, who were following Jesus, after this, stopped to follow him. |
|
| |
|
However, is it really for this encouragement to cannibalism that many left him? In fact, the Jews at that time were used to such a figurative language and they know well that flesh and blood is, in Hebraic terms, a way of meaning the whole person. Jesus showed that he took the whole of the human condition, flesh and blood, with its weakness and vulnaribility, as a son of man, in the same time he took all the dignity and grandeur of a son of God: he showed a close proximity with who he called his Father. In fact he removed all ambiguity about this by adding:” It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no value; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” .
Then, why are the members of his audience so reticent about these words? “ Eat the flesh and drink the blood,” means that we believe that the actions of Jesus are really food that is a source of life. Jesus said it more clearly: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.” |
|
| |
|
 |
This way of referring to his Father by Jesus is a problem for those who know that he is only the son of Joseph, more so they are scandalized, because pretending to be the bread of life that came down from heaven is like a blaspheme. We have here all the ingredients of his condemnation to death: “ He has blasphemed!” |
|
|
| |
|
| “Eat the flesh, drink the blood”, it is to believe in Jesus and to follow him. As well he is living by his Father, that is, his way of living and his motivations come from his relation with his Father, he was proposing to us the same relationship with him and compared himself to a food and a drink, which, once assimilated, have become the intimate part of our body after having taken them: |
|
| |
|
| “ He who eats my flesh and drink my blood abides in me, and I in him” We are of the same blood, him and us: “see” or “believe in some thing”, it is “to come to Jesus” and understand that he want to share with us the close union he has with God. |
|
|
|
| |
|
| In consequence, Jesus can announce: “ Who comes to me will never be hungry and who believes in me will never be thirsty” The emphasis on food, bread/flesh and drink, wine/blood that John used to speak about Jesus was to enforce that Jesus is involved in his entire personality to fulfil and satisfy us for ever. “ Yes it is the will of my Father that any body that sees the son and believes in him, achieves an eternal life” By the sign of the bread and the wine, Jesus is putting himself in the heart of our sharing between humans, which begins by giving and sharing food. Once again, “following Jesus” means to engage oneself into giving and sharing with others. A certain number of people thought that “following Jesus” was too much and preferred to draw back. |
|
| |
|
| Seeing all these side-steppings, Jesus asked to the twelve disciples: “ Will you also go away?” However, they understood that this bread, this wine, this flesh and this blood were signs of hope above all hopes.” |
|
|
