7 May 2019
Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
The first step in loving Jesus more completely is to believe in Him, and to live our lives and understand reality by and through that belief. However for some of us, as it was with the crowd in today’s Gospel, that is a troubling prospect. We want to anchor our reality and our lives in something solid, something we can see and touch, something we can verify with the senses: something we can control. And so, like the crowd, we say in various ways to the Lord, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?”
Someone very dear to me once found himself experiencing a crisis of tremendous heartbreak. He had never had a strong faith in God, but he had hit such a rock-bottom that it was to God he turned. He had the opportunity to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and essentially told God that if He was real, this was His chance to show Himself. Of course, God did no such thing, at least not in a manner satisfying to this dear one of mine, and to this day he has no faith. To this day he is unwilling to believe, to build his life upon Jesus, all because he cannot verify to his own satisfaction that he would be building on anything at all. Likewise the crowd in our Gospel demands a sign of Jesus if they are to believe in Him: they want a repeat of the great miracle of the manna. Why? Because it is a sign they know to be from God, and a sign they already trust.
They forget, however, something Jesus remembers clearly: not only did their ancestors eat the manna and eventually die, but they eventually came to despise the manna. They complained against God and Moses saying, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” (Numbers 21:5). So Jesus offers them an even greater sign: the true bread from Heaven, bread that will satisfy them such that they will never hunger or thirst. Understandably they say, “Sir, give us this bread always!”
Would we not respond in the same way? Imagine such food! So Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” There it is again: belief. Those who believe in Jesus, those who love Him, who depend utterly upon Him will never thirst, will never experience that agonizing lack of the most essential nourishment for the flesh and soul. No longer will we wander thirsty through the deserts and wastes of life: in Jesus we find a bottomless well of fulfillment, but only if we drink not with our mouths but with our hearts. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open wide your mouth that I may fill it,” (Psalm 81:11) we read. What does He offer for our hunger, our longing for Him? He offers Himself: He offers His Son.