Our Gospels this month at Mass have been focusing on Jesus, the Bread of Life. Today in the Gospel lesson (St. John 6.56-69), Our Lord tells his followers and listeners, He tells us, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me." (vv.56-57)
This is not a metaphor. The listeners in the First Century did not take it to be a metaphor, and neither should we. That indeed makes this a "hard saying," (v. 60) and for many is indeed offensive. (v. 61) The fact of the matter is that Jesus, God the Word, became one of us not just to teach, not just to heal, not just to be an example, but to be a sacrifice. He became the ultimate Passover, the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. The blood of the Passover sacrifice was smeared on the doorposts and lintels so the Angel of Death would pass over the house observing the sacrifice, those in the house ate the sacrificed Lamb to partake in the Grace offered. So also when Jesus died on the cross His Blood shields us from the ultimate Angel of Death that would drag us to eternal oblivion, while His Body we consume to partake in the Grace of that Sacrifice.
It is not just bread and wine that we consume at Mass. We the Body of Christ offer our prayers, the priest offers the bread and wine, but God the Holy Spirit makes this offering one with the Eternal Offering of Jesus Christ upon the Cross. Bread and wine become Jesus' Body and Blood. We may quibble as to the exact mechanics of it, how it retains the appearance and physical properties of the original offerings, but we must never forget that the Holy Spirit has changed it, and if we properly discern that it is the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, then we receive, relive, and partake in that Passover Sacrifice which delivers us from Sin and Death.
Let us like Peter acknowledge we have nowhere else to go, for Jesus Christ our Lord is the Holy One of God.
