Saturday in the Third Week of Easter, April 29, 2023

John 6, 60-69

Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  In today’s Gospel Reading we see how “many are called but few are chosen” (Matthew 22, 14).  The people saying, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”, are identified as the Lord’s disciples.  That is, these are people who have followed him as pupils attach themselves to star teachers.  They are seeking to learn from their teacher, convinced that he has the truth.  But they come to this “hard saying” that Jesus gives them, that to attain eternal life they must eat his Body and drink his Blood, and their willingness to learn from him stumbles.  The saying is indeed “hard” ( the Greek word also means “violent”, “harsh”, and “stern”), but they do not ask Jesus what he means: they only fight among themselves over his meaning.  This may reveal a certain bad faith on their part, but they were also reacting to the completely unexpected lesson in religion, for they believed that Jesus, the Messiah, had been sent by God to overthrow Roman rule: they expected him to rouse them up to march on Jerusalem.  Their rejection of the Lord’s teaching, then, amounted to their rejection of him as the Messiah, despite the tremendous miracle — the sign — he had performed for them.

“Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”  The Lord chides them, reminding them of what the Scriptures actually say about the Messiah, the Son of Man.  Certainly, the Son of Man’s visible return to the court of heaven would astonish or shock them far more than the teaching on his Body and Blood had.

“It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.”  To believe in the truths of the Faith requires the gift of the Holy Spirit.  One can know these truths and understand them to be reasonable, but to believe them is quite another thing.  The failure of these disciples to believe is a sign that they lack this gift, or that they had received the gift but rejected both the truth and the gift of faith because what the Lord said did not line up with what they wanted him to say: “But there are some of you who do not believe.” 

“For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  Many are called, but few answer the call, the draw, of the Father through the Holy Spirit to believe in the Son.  These disciples were willing to go a certain distance towards Jesus, but refuse to go beyond that because they wish him to change himself to suit them.  Few are “chosen”, that is, those who choose, through grace, to follow the Lord “wherever he goes” (Revelation 14, 4).  These chosen say with St. Peter: “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”