TRUE BREAD RISING
John 6:51-58
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 20), Year B
Analysis by Glenn L. Monson
51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, 55for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
“The aroma of Christ, the living bread, fills the cosmos, giving life to all.”
DIAGNOSIS: Dead Ones Walking
Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem): Dead-End Living
“…you have no life in you.” (vs. 53)
Years ago there was a hit movie, The Sixth Sense, in which we follow the life of a child psychologist, Malcolm Crowe, only to find out at the end of the movie that he is a ghost; he didn’t survive a gunshot wound in the opening moments of the movie, and has been dead the whole time, though we do not realize that until the end. We are often fooled as well, thinking that life apart from Christ is possible. We operate as though our survival, and perhaps in our deepest self-deception, even the beginning and the end of our life is in our hands. We are deeply deceived.
Step 2: Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem): Deluded Self-Sufficiency of Unbelief
“This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died.” (vs. 58)
We have been believing in ourselves, our own power, our own wisdom, our complete self-sufficiency for so long, that we don’t even remember that every ability, every advantage, every privilege, every blessing that we enjoy daily, is a gift from God. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we take it for granted that our “manna” will come to us daily, and somehow, we believe it comes to us because we have earned it.
Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Eternal Problem): Starving to Death
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (vs.52)
Our unbelief runs deep. A man gives us his own flesh to eat and his own blood to drink, and that, in the form of bread and wine is sufficient for eternal life? We are very skeptical. How can this be? After all, he’s the one dying, not us, we think. No, better to depend on the bread that has a little more substance to it. We don’t even know we are starving to death… until our own ghastly end.
PROGNOSIS: The Dead One Rises
Step 4: Initial Prognosis: (Eternal Solution): The Starving Are Fed and Live
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (vs. 51)
Life from death – that’s what Jesus promises. Yes, he dies. Yes, he is really dead. Yes, he is raised and he becomes the living bread that feeds the world. The aroma of Christ, the living bread, fills the cosmos, giving life to all. The divine, life-giving meal which is Christ’s body and blood is offered to all, and all who eat of it hunger no more. Life begins anew, and each morsel is a foretaste of the feast to come.
Step 5: Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution): Junk Food No More
“…my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” (vs. 55)
True bread, not some fake Wonder bread. True drink, and not some fake energy drink. We see now that what we have been consuming is empty calories – junk food. We see that what we viewed as life-giving was actually sapping life from us. We see now, and trust that the bread that Christ gives really satisfies us, fills us, and grants us strength we have never known.
Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution): Filled with Christ
“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” (vs. 56)
We are alive! Christ is alive and abiding in us! The ghosts that we were have been replaced with flesh and blood, and the Holy Ghost fills us. Our lives are consumed with showing other hungry souls where the bread of life is found. We beggars, now share with other beggars, any bread we have. The abundance of Christ has now become our abundance. The life of Christ has become our life.
