Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

August 19, 2018 

Readings:

First Reading: Proverbs 9: 1-6

Psalm: 34

Second Reading: Ephesian 5: 15-20

Gospel reading according to John 6: 51-58

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Homily:

Jesus was amenable that he is the living bread.  No one in the entire world who said that he and/or she was the living bread that came down from heaven, except Jesus, the Christ.  “Jesus said to the crowd: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven’” (Jn. 6: 51); he said this plainly and to everybody’s hearing, to let them know who he really was.  “I am” refer to the identity of God.  These words given by God to Moses on how the latter introduced the former to the Jewish people in Egypt (cf. Exodus 3: 14).  This Jesus was saying that God and he were one in thought, words and in deeds regarding us, his people.

This bread represents Jesus’ own body, his own “Flesh,” to be given to us as our food in this journey in this world. “. . .  and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world’” (Jn. 6: 51).  He and God’s concern is to give life (the bread = material and spiritual food) to many, particularly those in the world for their salvation and life eternal.  They do not want anyone be lost and engulfed by the allurements of the world, that’s why he is giving this new bread that makes our lives anew.  The Father wanted to give His Son’s life (the bread of life) to us by offering his body, his “Flesh,” on the wood of the Cross, so that our wrong-doings maybe forgiven and so we receive eternal life, a life to the fullest.

It was unbelievable for the Jews to hear what Jesus said, especially when Jesus was still alive and present and in front of them.  The way they understood it was they have to slaughter Jesus in order to eat his flesh.  They took it literally for they cannot eat a living flesh of a man.  If they cannot eat dirty food like pigs offered on the altar of Baal, how much more they can eat the flesh of a living man?  “The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his Flesh to eat’?” (Jn. 6: 52). What they saw and thought was the humanity (humanness) of Jesus, his flesh and blood.  They did not realize what Jesus was referring to was the Paschal Mystery of the Passover Seder, (The Seder is a ritual performed by a community or by multiple generations of a family, involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. This story is in the Book of Exodus (Shemot) in The Hebrew Bible), the Holy Eucharist to be happened in the Upper Room, and of which he would offer his life in the passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection.  Although, these do not happen yet and so it is still beyond the knowledge of the Jews, I only anticipated the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ to explain the question of the Jews, “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”  This also refers to what the Catholic Church called “Transubstantiation,” (Latin: transsubstantiatio; Greek: μετουσίωσις metousiosis) that is, according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the change of substance or essence by which the bread and wine offered in the sacrifice of the sacrament of the Eucharist during the Mass, become, in reality, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Yet Jesus was guaranteeing the Jews about eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood. “Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you’.” (Jn. 6: 53).  The Jews were told to accept his Flesh to eat and his Blood to drink to receive life in them; otherwise they do not have life within themselves.  For when they, as well as we, eat his body and drink his blood we have life in him.  Like eating material food that gives life and energy (or strength) in our physical body to live; the same effect or even more when we eat Jesus’ body and drink his blood that give nourishments in our physical and spiritual life to live eternally.   

                                                              

To make it deeper in our hearts what he was saying about eating and drinking of his body and blood, Jesus assured us that, “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (Jn. 6: 54).  We should have and received eternal life when we eat his body and drink his blood, and in the hour of our death the food (the Flesh and the Blood) we have received, eaten and drunk, will be our means in our resurrection to the next life.  He will raise us up on the last day from this world, because we have received his body and his blood.  We are secured for Jesus was assuming in saying to us, “For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink” (Jn. 6: 55).  As much as our faith dictates, we must know and believe about this disclosure of Jesus to us. 

Jesus was also telling the Jews their relation with Jesus.  They will become part of Jesus when they accept and do his words.  “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him” (Jn. 6: 56).  Jesus will remain in us if we eat his Flesh and drink his blood, and nobody can snatch us from Jesus’ hands.  He will not allow losing us but always beside us.

In his relationship with God the Father, that they are inseparable, that the Father is living with him and he lives with the Father, Jesus wants us also to live with him so that we can live also with the Father.   “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me” (Jn. 6: 57).  Jesus wanted to share with us the life he had received from God by eating him, meaning by believing in him, as the one sent by God the Father.

Here he once again told the crowd regarding the bread that came down from heaven given by God the Father, “This is the bread that came down from heaven.  Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever” (Jn. 6: 58).  Now he was saying this in a more acceptable manner, as he set an example and compared their ancestors who ate the manna yet they died.  This new bread he will give anyone who eats will have life and live forever.  “Whoever eats this bread,” will have life and “live forever.”  He reiterated once more the eating of “this bread” and the life eternal with him or her who believes in him, Jesus Christ.