Today is the fourth of the five Sundays when our Gospels are from the “Bread of Life” discourse in the Gospel of John (6:22-71). 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 … unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” Well, those words provoked resistance among “the Jews” who asked: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Good question, we might also say! The biblical context is very important for understanding this Gospel passage. John’s Gospel was written last, perhaps as late as 110 of the Christian era, perhaps in the city of Ephesus. By that time, Christians had formally separated from the Jewish religion of Jesus. But there was still tension over that separation, because of hostility between the two religions, and perhaps because some in John’s community were either Jewish converts or descendants of them. In today’s passage, John is instructing his community about the new covenant. John uses Jesus’ words to teach how Jesus’ life, death and resurrection goes beyond or completes the salvation belief of Hebrew Scripture. “Bread from heaven” and “flesh” refer to the Exodus story (Ex 16) where manna fell in the morning to feed the people, and quail (flesh) covered the camp in the evening. “Blood” references the night of escape from Egypt when blood of lambs was smeared on Jewish doorposts so they could be spared when “the angel of death” struck the Egyptians. Blood is the life source of the body. The blood of slain lambs signified salvation for the Jews — in the Passover meal, the flesh of slain lambs is eaten. But now, for Christians it is the blood of the slain Jesus who saves the whole world. John’s language is incarnational. He is not letting his community think that Jesus did not have a real human body. Jesus is truly human: he bleeds. This incarnate Lord does not just feed us with other stuff like manna and quail but with Himself, his actual life — his body and blood poured out for us. Understanding all this, we can see the spiritual bombshell implication of this passage. We are supposed to do the same, give our lives away for others. It might not be by the literal shedding of our blood but by pouring out our precious life time and energy in love and service. That is the spiritual challenge we need to “eat.”
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
