May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In today’s Gospel reading we learn that the Jews are disputing amongst themselves that which Jesus has told them about who he is. In the verses that lead into today’s reading, Jesus has revealed himself to them as one sent by God and whoever believes in him will have eternal life. He is the bread of life and the bread that he will give for the life of the world is his flesh. He tells them that if they do not eat his flesh and drink his blood they will not be granted eternal life.
In the opening sentence of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus continues to provide his hearers with what it means to share in his body and blood. It means that he will abide in them and they in him. As given in John chapter 15, as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can they unless they abide in him. If they do not abide in him then they may, as Jerome said in the fourth century, be condemned to what he described as ‘the huge winepress of hell’. Jesus contrasts the bread of life with the manna eaten by the ancestors of the Jews who then died. Contrast because the bread he talks of is of spiritual significance. Bread itself is earthly but when Jesus offers it as his flesh it acquires a spiritual dimension. It is then both earthly and heavenly.
Here we see that the spirit and the earth both feature in John’s Gospel, in contrast to the more down-to-earth narratives given to us by Matthew, Mark and Luke. The spirit, though, is given pride of place over the earthly. As Jesus says in today’s reading: ‘It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless’. We find this also asserted by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. He writes that the struggle we have is not against enemies of blood and flesh but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We must put on ‘the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God’.
The Word is very much at the heart of John’s Gospel. His Gospel opens with the Word becoming flesh. As he writes: ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’. ‘In the beginning’ gives God to us as the Creator and what came into being was life that was the light of all people. A light that the darkness could not overcome. The Word became flesh in Jesus as the Son of God and it is that flesh that Jesus is offering in today’s Gospel reading.
It is an offering that his disciples are finding difficult to understand. In their non-comprehension they are finding what he says offensive. Jesus foreknows that some of them would not believe him and that Judas will betray him. As several of his disciples turn away from him, only Simon Peter makes a clear declaration of Jesus as ‘the Holy One of God’. He knows that Jesus has ‘the Words of Eternal Life’.
In the walking away of the disciples we have a continuation of the disbelief of the Jews who could not accept Jesus, the son of Joseph, as one who has come down from heaven. The disciples also find the Words of Eternal Life too much to take on board and to fully comprehend. It is perhaps easier for us today to comprehend because we know what the disciples did not then know, that this discourse is a prelude to the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. It is only when we get to John chapter 16 that we know the disciples have finally grasped who Jesus is as he has spoken to them plainly, ‘not in any figure of speech’. He says that he has come from the Father and come into the world and will leave the world and go to the Father.
What John’s Gospel reveals to me is the power of words. If what someone says is misunderstood it can have negative consequences. If words that speak to the truth are understood then the consequences can be hugely beneficial. The benefit to humanity of believing the Words of Eternal Life are monumental. Salvation, eternal life and union with God. On the negative side, words may not break your bones but they can be used by a person to destroy another by ridicule, mockery and insult. What protects those who believe in God is the knowledge that they have the ability in faith to do what St Paul advises us to do, which is to put on the whole armour of God so that we can stand firm in the face of evil.
We also have the knowledge given to us by John’s Gospel that Jesus is the True Vine, the Bread of Life and the light of the world. With that in mind, if Jesus is for us, who can be against us?
AMEN