Friday of Third Week of Easter, April 27,2007

Scripture: Acts of the Apostles 9: 1-20. Psalm 117. John 6:52-59.
Lectionary # 277

We reach the highpoint of chapter six which is Jesus' great discourse on
the theme of the Bread of Life. The description given by Jesus is
offensive to some of the listeners, but he is making a strong point about
how he is the nourishment of souls if they believe in him. The language is
so graphic that some listeners take it as literally meaning the consuming
of his physical body--cannabalism! The word in Greek used for this eating
of the body of Christ is "trogein" and means to chew, to crunch, to eat.
Of course, Jesus is speaking on a different level than the literal but just
as Nicodemus did not understand how it is possible to be "born again or
from above", so now the listeners are shocked at Jesus' choice of words.
The challenge offered to anyone reading the passage today is to go deeper
into the mystery of what Jesus means when he says that to have eternal life
one must eat his body and drink his blood. Outside of a sacramental
understanding of this passage, we, too would be scandalized. A mystical
and sacramental contemplation of the passage deepens our faith. Jesus is
pushing our faith to its limits in order that we may grow in our trust and
love of who he is and wants to be for us. In returning to the Prologue of
John, the most important verse about the Incarnation helped me to ponder
this paragraph this morning: "And the Word became flesh and lives among
us." (John 1:14). Jesus is the Word and he is Wisdom or Sophia speaking
about himself as gift to us for our nourishment and our participation in
his eternal gift of life. He is sharing his entire self with us under the
symbols of bread and wine-- the staple food of his time. Truly "Wonder
Bread" and "Messianic Wine". Jesus is the Revealer in this Fourth Gospel;
he is revealing to us the gift of the Eucharist which leads us to a
participation in the divine life and its eternal persistence even after a
historical life for each of us here on earth. God has, so to speak, become
human in order that we might become divine. I love these words from
today's passage: "Whoever eats me will live because of me...the one who
eats this bread will live forever...Those who eat my flesh and drink my
blood have eternal life." Truly in the Eucharist Jesus the Word of God
becomes flesh and dwells within us." Finally, in recently reading excerpts
from early Christian apostolic theologians, I was amazed at how well they
understood the realism of the Eucharist. They were readings from St.
Justin Martyr a converted philospher and St. Irenaeus the bishop of Lyon.
Both wrote before 200 A.D.I had already cited the key passage from Justin;
here are a few sentences from Irenaeus: "He (Jesus) affirmed that the
bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the
nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake
receive the word of God, the eucharistic elements become the body and blood
of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that
flesh belonging to the Lord's own body and nourished by his body and blood
is incapable of receiving God's gift of eternal life? St. Paul says in his
letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body,of his flesh and
bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man,
for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human
body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of
Christ's blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body." (St.
Irenaeus, Agains Heresies. SC 153, 30-38). Amen.