Wednesday in the Third Week of Easter, April 26, 2023

John 6, 35-40

Jesus said to the crowds, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  We should note that the Lord Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.”  But  if Jesus is “the bread of life”, what is other bread, for it also gives life?  It is significant that the Lord does not merely say that he is “bread” rather than the “bread of life”.  He speaks as he does to show that he is not like bread, but that bread is, in a limited way, like him.  We might think of God, when he created the plants, at the beginning of time, created wheat that would be used for bread based on the model of his Son, who would one day take on human flesh.  We might also think of Jesus as the perfect Bread and of the bread that we eat to nourish our bodies as a distant relation.  For this reason, the Lord is the bread of life which is more than mortal, physical, life: he is the bread of eternal life.  He will nourish us body and soul for our growth into the life of heaven.  “[He] will never hunger.”  That is, one who eats the bread of life, who receives life from Jesus Christ, will receive the fullness of life which lacks nothing.  “Whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  The Lord ties the reception of his Body and Blood to faith.  In order to receive the Body of the Lord a person must possess faith, and the reception itself is an act of faith.  It is for this reason that when a member of the faithful comes to receive Holy Communion the priest who administers it holds up the Host and declares, “The Body of Christ”, and the communicant responds, “Amen”, registering his belief that the Host is the Body of Christ.

“But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe.”  The Lord warns the crowd that their mere looking upon him does not qualify as an act of faith and that more is required.  

“Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”  The Greek word here translated as “everything” is in the neuter gender so that the phrase could be translated as “Everything that, etc.”, but it is more reasonably translated as “everyone whom”.  The sense of the phrase is that the Father gives to the Son human persons and these the Son receives and gives life to.  As it the Lord will say later in this discourse, “No man can come to me, except the Father, who has sent me, draw him” (John 6, 44).  The Father gives — or “draws” — all people to the Son, but not everyone wants to be “given” and “received” by them.  But all those who truly desire to be received by the Son, will be.  This is the will of the Father which the Son always obeys.

“And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.”  The Father wills that the Son not lose anyone, but there are those who will reject the Son even after having accepted him.  We call this apostasy.  This is the will of a man or woman and not God’s will.  The point of the verse is that no one can be lost despite his abiding desire for Jesus Christ, only through sin and the loss of faith.  It is furthermore the will of the Father that the Son raise those whom he receives on the last day for the judgment at which their good deeds will be shown to the world and they will be brought into heaven.  The Son now claims a prerogative greater than the Messiah taught by the Pharisees was said to possess, that of raising the dead.  Thus, the Lord Jesus shows himself to be the successor of Moses through miraculously feeding the crowd in the wilderness and therefore the Messiah, and also that he is far greater than any human messiah could be.

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”  The Lord returns to his opening words, that the people whom he had fed saw but did not believe.  Now, seeing him, if they would believe, they might have eternal life.  It is up to them.  Seeing alone does not suffice for we can see thing by accident or see things and not recognize them.  Here, seeing (or hearing) followed by believing leads to eternal life.  This believing is that Jesus is the Son of God whom the Father sent into the world.  Believing is not simply an intellectual act, although that is one component in it.  It is also professing this belief through words and actions.  

Our knowing and believing in the Son of God is a result of God’s drawing us to him throughout our lives, sometimes very subtly and on occasion dramatically, accompanied by our response to this being drawn.  It is an aid to our faith to look back down the road to see how God has drawn us and how we have assented to him.