10 May 2019
Friday of the Third Week of Easter
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you.”
Things have gone too far. At first Jesus’ words were sweet and inviting, almost as a lover begging below the window of his beloved for even the smallest favor. But now He has resorted to an ultimatum: unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood, you have no life. Period. The crowd had already put forward their question: “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?” It is similar to Mary’s question of the angel: “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:34) The angel answers her question, revealing how the impossible will be possible, stating at last …nothing will be impossible for God,” (Luke 1:37). Yet here Jesus does not explain Himself; rather, He takes the impossible and makes it unthinkable, such that, as we will read tomorrow, He loses the crowd altogether.
Why? Why would Jesus not take a step back from the brink of seeming insanity? Why would He not, as did the angel, honor the question of the people with an explanation? Perhaps—dare we think?—there was nothing to explain: perhaps Jesus meant exactly what He was saying. All this week He has begged us to trust Him, to believe in Him and now, when He is saying the most unbelievable things, when faith is more necessary than ever, the people refuse to trust Him. They refuse to believe in Him. They refuse to love Him.
If only their hearts were open to believing His Word! What a gift they might have received! As we reflected upon yesterday, God is the source of our life; in the beginning, our first parents cut themselves off from that source in their sin and, by not reconciling with God, remained cut off. Their descendants, all the way down to us today, were born into that broken reality, that subjection to death, all because Adam and Eve would not believe God, would not love Him: in sin they ate what was forbidden. Now Jesus—saying only what the Father has told Him to say!—commands us to eat His flesh and drink His blood lest we forfeit true and eternal life. In the beginning we ate and died; in the new beginning we are told to eat and live! Adam and Eve found the forbidden fruit to be “…good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom,” (Genesis 3:6). The crowd—and many Christians today—find this new food to be revolting, offensive to the eyes, and the Tree upon which that Fruit once hung is utterly undesirable: it is foolish to even approach it.
The Jews relied upon their own wisdom; to them the words of Jesus sounded like cannibalism. Was it not unlawful to consume blood? Indeed it was: “As for anyone… who consumes any blood, I will set myself against that individual and will cut that person off from among the people, since the life of the flesh is in the blood,”(Leviticus 17:10-11). Yet is this not precisely what Jesus desires to give us: His life? “For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink!” Does not Scripture say that a man and a woman, in marriage, become “…one flesh…” (Genesis 2:24)? Jesus says “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in Him,” and such a person will have life because of Him just as He has life because of the Father: by consuming His Body and Blood we will enjoy, with Christ, a communion like that which He shares with His Father.And yet we so casually receive the Eucharist! We so callously avoid the confessional, eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood in our sins, food and drink made available to us only by His hanging upon the Tree of Life, there within the garden of Golgotha (John 19:41). When Mass ends we hurry to the door, to our car, and back into the world, all without taking even a moment to enjoy and note what we have received and what we, in those precious minutes of Communion, are able to enjoy. If we believe in Him, if we love Him, if we cherish the Gift of His Body and Blood then let us savor it: let us give ourselves to the One who has given Himself to us.