|
This
Sunday’s reading from Exodus reminds us that the desert is the
place of No Thing—of
nothing. All of
us, at one time or another, end up in our own desert place: a critical moment in our lives in which
we are lost without hope.
For the people of Israel this experience of desperation
turned out to be a good thing--they experienced in a powerful
way the meaning of God’s saving presence.
In the desert the people of God learned what it meant
to be poor and to have to rely on God for everything.
This of course would be critical for the development
of their faith and for the nurturing of their hope in the providence
of God. There
is a bush in the Sinai Peninsula known as the tamarind. It produces
a sweet sap which falls from its leaves to the ground.
In the coolness of the night the sap hardens.
One gathers it up at dawn,
before the sun melts it.
Would this in fact be the “manna” that God offered the
people--although multiplying it in a prodigious manner?
What we can only know for certain is that the Israelites
always considered the appearance of this food as a demonstration
of the miraculous intervention of God on behalf of his people.
The name “manna” comes from the remarks of children who
asked, “What is this?”, which in their language is said “Man-ah?”
The
Psalms referred to this food as the bread from heaven (Psalm
78) and the book of Wisdom declares: “You nourished your
people with food of angels and furnished them bread from heaven,
ready to hand, untoiled-for, endowed with all delights and conforming
to every taste. For this substance of yours revealed your sweetness
toward your children, and serving the desire of him who received
it, was blended to whatever flavor each one wished” (Wisdom
16: 20). Jesus
claims that the true bread from heaven is his body and blood.
That is, that this miraculous manna from the desert was
a symbol and a sign of what God was going to do later on for
his chosen ones, feeding them with the body of his own Divine
Son. The
second reading is a continuation of the letter to the Ephesians.
The letter asks believers to open themselves to the work
of the Holy Spirit, to allow themselves to be transformed into
a people worthy of the light from which they were created.
The letter encourages us to abandon our former, sinful
ways of life so that we might begin to walk as Christians.
We are asked to adopt a set of criteria, to “put on a
new self”, that is, to make God's truth a part of our very selves. Paul
develops this argument playing with the antithesis of the old
human being in the new human being (Col 3: 9-10; 1 Cor 5: 7-8).
Choosing the new human being is to choose Christ.
This of course means breaking with the old human being,
of putting to one side our blind love of the world so as to
be opened to a continual renovation in the spirit, to be able
to live as just and holy people.
This text is a clear response to those who would think
that Christianity is simply something from past. The
Gospel includes the discourse on the Bread of Life which involves
three logically successive affirmations. The first one is presented in this text:
that the real and true bread from heaven is not the manna that
was given by Moses to the people--although that is what the
people thought (v. 31). This “new” bread is literally that which
is descended from the heavens.
It is God, not Moses gives out this bread (v. 32). In his signs Jesus has manifested the
meaning of his person (we saw this last Sunday), although the
people have only been able to understand the signs in the material
sense (6: 26, 12). Jesus wants to take them to another level
in their appreciation of who he is. It is, however, only through
faith that one can understand this.
It is only through the believer’s faith that Jesus be
able to give himself to them as food.
In this faith is something that you have to work for,
although the fruits of his work our life that has no end, a
gift of the Son of Man (v. 27).
The Jews think immediately of works, of moral practice,
of religion. Jesus responds that the only work necessary
is belief in him, to realize the need for him in the same way
that one realizes the need for food when one is hungry. The Jews consider this sort of faith in
Jesus of Nazareth to be excessive--that is why they demand a
miraculous sign, like those that Moses did (vv. 30-31).
They don't think that Jesus’ most recent miracles are
sufficient evidence of his divinity.
Jesus responds that he is much more than Moses, that
in him (the Christ) the people have a gift of God that never
vanishes. This
bread you can keep (6:13), unlike the manna that spoiled (Ex.
16: 20). Later
in chapter six of John’s Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples to
leave the area (using their boats) before the temptation to
proclaim Jesus as a political king overcomes the people. In the meantime, Jesus escapes for some
time in prayer. Later
on, he catches up with the disciples, calms the sea and assuring
their safe arrival to the other side of the sea. Jesus teaches
us the importance of taking care not to fall into the temptation
of using the preaching of God's word as a way of attaining power.
The way to conquer this temptation is prayer, a prayer
that places us, once again, in the “right relationship to God.”
These miraculous signs prepare us for the long and well
known discourse on “the Bread of Life.”
The
people saw the disciples sail away-- but Jesus wasn't in their
boats. All the
same, when they don't find Jesus amongst themselves, they sail
off in search of him.
When they reach Capernaum, they are amazed to discover
that Jesus too had crossed, though not to in a boat.
They ask Jesus, “how did you get here?”
Jesus of course knows that they are searching for a messiah,
a king. Jesus knows that the people are looking
for a miraculous bread that will never end. How many of us fall into the same trap--
that we see Jesus
and the reign of God as simply solutions to our personal problems,
and we don't put out the most minimal effort to resolve them
ourselves? In reality,
while we believe we are looking for Jesus, but are in fact seeking
a magical solution to our problems. This motive is, in and of itself, a rejection
of Jesus. Jesus
responds to the people’s searching for him with a marvelous
discourse, which, after the sermon of the Last Supper, is the
richest and most developed teaching on the Eucharist that we
find in this gospel. The
discourse is a catechesis on the Bread of Life, in which Jesus invites us not to focus so much upon food
which lasts only for the moment, and which only temporarily
satisfies our hunger, but rather upon God who provides all nourishment. The Bread from Heaven and that earthly
bread represent two different ways of living. The “food that perishes” represents
life that in the end comes to an end, life that is subject to
death, life that is limited.
The Bread of Life, on the other hand, offers eternal,
unending, abundant life. Jesus inspires us to look beyond earthly
life and to rejoice in the life that comes from God, an everlasting,
never-ending life. At
this point the discourse might remind us of those people who, although they possess every earthly good,
end up killing themselves in despair, realizing that no earthly
good that can totally satisfy spiritual hunger. The discourse reminds us as well
of those very poor people who are the happiest of all of us. These people feast at the table of the
Word of God and are satisfied with the Bread that lasts forever. Only
Jesus and his teachings can truly satisfy the hunger for truth
that human beings have. Jesus says “I am the truth.” Only Christ, the one who teaches us that
God is love, can satisfy the craving for love that human beings
have. Only the Son of God, “the resurrection
and life”, can quench the thirst for immortality, our desire
to live forever, to never die.
Those who search for eternal life will find it in Jesus.
We fully believe in Jesus because all that he says is
backed up by the seal of God.
Thus
it is that Jesus inspires a response to this wonderful gift
of Bread from Heaven: “What is it that we should do? What are
the works that we should do?”
Jesus puts to one side all of the obligations of Jewish
law and proclaims that the only thing worth working for
is belief in Jesus as the one sent by God.
The one work that God desires of us is belief in Jesus. How does one do this sort of work? St. Anthony Claret, tells us quite clearly
that we have to do is “know, love, and serve the Lord Jesus.” When
Jesus asks his followers to have faith in him, they realize
the seriousness of his request, and so they ask him for some
sort of sign, something that might inspire them to faith. These folks are still thinking about the
multiplication of the loaves and fishes—the miracle reminded
them of the desert manna.
Manna had always been considered as something miraculous,
a type of the True God-given Bread from Heaven.
Indeed, Jewish teachers warned their students that when
the Messiah did come, that he would do miracles similar to those
seen in the time of Moses. This is the context for the challenge
to Jesus for a miraculous sign—they were seeking to prove that
he was indeed the Messiah.
With this request, the Jews showed that they didn’t believe
that Jesus was the awaited Messiah. Jesus’
response to this request teaches us to be careful with how we
read Biblical history, that we must take care not to draw literal
conclusions that would serve to confuse the revelation that
God has handed down to us.
Moreover, the demand for such signs is presumptuous—it
is as if we believe that God is at our service (and not vice
versa). Indeed,
God came forth in a way that completely confounded human expectations.
In the end, those who have sought Jesus out ask him quite
simply “Lord, give us always of this bread.” The plea lends
itself to a prayer that we ourselves ought to be repeating frequently
in our lives, as it captures so well that desire for life and
for salvation that creates the proper attitude of the human
being before God: we are those who ask and those who would
receive. “I
am the Bread of Life” is a powerful statement, similar to those
other descriptions of Jesus that touch us to the core—“I am
the Light of the Word”, “I am the Good Shepherd”. The person who comes to Jesus will no
longer be hungry or experience thirst, she will need nothing
else to bring her peace and happiness.
Jesus is the source of peace and joy, the center for
our well-being. Jesus is the focal point of God’s gift
to us of life. In
Jesus Christ, God’s total commitment of love to each and every
one expresses itself in God’s desire to walk with us daily and
forever. Being
in communion with the revelation of this love—with Jesus Christ—satisfies
our hungry hearts. For
Personal Consideration:
For
the Group’s Consideration: Spend
time thinking over the appearances of manna in the Old Testament
(Exodus 16; Numbers 11: 4-9; 31-33) and what this manna could
represent for us today. For
the Prayer of the Faithful
Let
Us Pray
|
|||
|
Claretian Communications,
Inc. • 8 Mayumi St. UP Village, Diliman 1101, Quezon City, Philippines
|
|||