JESUS IS THE BREAD OF LIFE

XIX SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - John 6:41-51

Being the last gospel to be written, John does not present a narrative of the Last Supper and we may think that he left out the institution of the Eucharist, which is central to Christian worship. However, in chapter 6, John gives us a eucharistic gem with Jesus’ speech on the bread of life. Jesus’ saying: “the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51) is the same statement that we find in Lk 22:19 (or 1 Co 11:24): “This (bread) is my body, which will be given for you”. The speech on the bread of life was given to the crowd that came after him on the day after the miraculous feeding. Jesus took the opportunity to bring into the open their motives: they were looking for easy food and an easy way of life. They were not concerned at all with eternal life (or the Kingdom of God); they cared only about finding an easy way of enjoying life. Jesus had advised them to look for the true food that comes from heaven and presented himself as “the bread that came down from heaven”. In their reaction, people showed their lack of faith, very similar to the unbelief of the people of Israel, who time and again put God to the test, refusing to trust the Lord. For them, Jesus was no more than the “son of Joseph”, a humble carpenter from Nazareth. So they despised Jesus and accused him of delusion and self-aggrandisement.

According to Jesus, to believe in him, we must be led by the Father. Indeed, faith is a gift from God, who facilitates the encounter with Jesus, leading to believe and accept him as the Son of God. We need a listening heart “to hear the teaching of the Father, and learn from it”; only then will we go to Jesus and recognise him as the giver of life and salvation. It is faith in Jesus that opens the door to eternal life.

Jesus is the “living bread”, and “Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever” (Jn 6:51). In the eucharist bread that we receive, we enter in communion with the body of Christ. This has been the faith of the Church from the beginning. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ” (Jn 10:16).

Saint Justin, one of the first Christian writers, presented our faith in the Eucharist in this manner:

“And this food is called among us Eykargstga [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” (Justin, First Apology, no 66). 

Let us approach the table of the Lord with true faith, so that in Jesus we find life and salvation.