Word to the Wise
Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - Third Tuesday in Easter
[Acts 7:51-8:1A and John 6:30-35]I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst!
In the Gospel of John, Jesus uses a number of images to identify himself. He does this with the very important phrase, "I AM!" This phrase, with its echoes of Moses and the Burning Bush, begins some of his most important discourses in this gospel. I AM the bread of life, the good shepherd, the way, the truth and the life, the resurrection and the life! After the sign of the multiplication of loaves and fishes in the Gospel of John, Jesus begins a discourse called "the bread of life" discourse. It is the discourse in which he speaks most explicitly of the need to "eat my body" and "drink my blood." Some of his audience thinks that he means cannibalism! What he DOES mean is that HE is eternal life. Our relationship to him enables us to experience that same life. We refer to bread as "the staff of life." Jesus gives himself to us that we may become one with him. This teaching represented an "all or nothing" point for many of Jesus' hearers. At the end of the discourse when it is said that many left him because of this teaching, Jesus challenges the disciples, "Will you go too?" Peter answers: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life." That challenge is for us as well. "Will you go, too?" Jesus is not just a good loaf of bread. He IS the bread of life. When someone asked the great Southern Catholic writer, Flannery O'Connor, what she thought of the Eucharist, she responded, "If it's just a symbol, then I say the hell with it." If we just get in line to receive a host, we are little better than cattle. If we wait our turn for the bread of life, we are on our way to eternity. AMEN
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