Fair warning: This is my favorite passage in my favorite Gospel, and St. John is my patron saint. That is, my confirmation name is John.
Frankly, you could start with this text and go all the way to v. 71, and it would obviously benefit you. But I’m zooming in here because the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper is so important and is a point of disagreement between Catholics and the children of the Reformation. As always, there is a ton of overlap here, as well there should be. The glory of Jesus Christ and His love for us will come through if your heart is open.
I may say some things concerning preference re: how the sacrament functions within the Catholic system, but again, questions of authority and submission are important, and are distinct from saying, “The system would be better if it had/lacked x.” I think the Magisterium or teaching office is wonderful and helpful, but only if Jesus actually put it there. If he didn’t, then quite literally, to Hell with it. Conversely, I find Protestant systematic accounts of how sacraments work to be terrifying, but if they were true, it wouldn’t matter what I thought or felt. We’ll come back to this when we’re done with the Bible, or probably better said, when Jesus the Word is done with us in this encounter with the Scriptures. Protestant life is mostly better in the pews than it is in the seminaries and in the books of theology.
When we encounter Jesus in John 6, he’s going to do some miracles, and he’s been doing miracles as the focal point of the Father’s plan to redeem humanity through him. John 1 has the Prologue and we encounter John the Baptist; John 2 is the turning of water into wine at the wedding in Cana, with Mary telling the servants and us with words that echo down the centuries, “Do whatever he tells you.” Miracles gradually reveal Jesus as Son of God but perpetual scourge of the temple leadership and Pharisees, and this is why he says, (at least on the face of it) to Mother Mary, “Woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” Every step he takes is in the shadow of the Cross. And of course, John 3 records Jesus saying why he came—to bring us into eternal life—and the encounter with Nicodemus. John 4 is the encounter between the Samaritan woman at the well, and in John 5 Jesus memorably heals someone on the Sabbath.
It’s almost funny—we can laugh about it, especially if we’re disciples of the risen Lord—but Jesus draws out these huge crowds of ordinary people, critics, and enemies. They follow him wherever he goes. He does the miracle multiplying the loaves and fish because the people were so curious about him that they forgot to eat or plan for it. (Or they’re too poor to eat regardless.) This chapter is another one of those places where the enemies of Jesus look more correct than we church people give them credit for. Jesus says loads of things that would be blasphemous to any natural descendant of Abraham. Seriously: we don't need Jesus to tell us how to be moral. Any part of the Hebrew Bible--and countless other religious or ethical systems--will do that for you. I tend to think that "Jesus is a good moral teacher" appeals to people who think that niceness is more important than truth. They think that conflict is the worst possible outcome. Unkindness--up to and including violence and murder--is indeed bad. But a sterile niceness based in lies is barely better.
"Jesus done picked a fight, now!" we might say here in the South. And our main text shows that the fight has been picked, and Jesus is on the road to "losing" on purpose. Most of this chapter, Jesus is being provocative along the lines of calling God his own father. This is the crux of it, pun intended. It's all over all four Gospels. I have been a Christian now for 28 or 29 years, give or take, and I suppose one of the privileges of being the Father's little child through the work of Christ the Son is being blissfully ignorant of the offense of Jesus. Look at v. 48 in chapter 6 here: "I am the bread of life." Pretend you haven't been soaking in this for decades, church people. What does that even mean? If you met someone who wasn't Jesus who talked like this, you'd call a doctor for them. You should.
Here is John 6:51-59:
I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
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Even a brief read of the Hebrew Scriptures indicates that the people aren't intimate with God this way. This kind of intimacy is for prophets, priests, and kings. Indeed, when God gave His name to Moses, it became the Name you don't write or say. Even today in the synagogues, you say "Adonai" in place of the Name. The great Leonard Nimoy (Spock from Star Trek) recounted a story from his youth, the synagogue divided between men and women, incense everywhere. He said he understood the incense was meant to evoke hiddenness and mystery. He wasn't supposed to look, but he did. What he saw was people chanting and parting their fingers in what Star Trek nerds know now as the "Vulcan salute." It's actually something passed down from the members of the Aaronic priesthood to their descendants, surely since the time of the book of Leviticus. (William Shatner, better known as Captain Kirk from Star Trek, is also Jewish. We're blessed to still have him. Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekhov beginning in 1967, is also Jewish. I digress.)
The book of Hebrews in the New Testament was written to convince Jewish Christians to remain as Christians, despite social pressure and persecution. It was revolutionary for the writer of Hebrews to say this:
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
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It's revolutionary because if you weren't father Abraham, or Moses, or later one of the priests, you don't "boldly" or "with confidence" approach any thrones, Jack. It's not a great life plan. That's a great way, as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, to die. Helpfully, the publishers of the RSVCE added the subject heading "Jesus The Great High Priest" to the section where this verse is found. And to bring it back to this Gospel, most Bibles in English have John 17 marked as "The High Priestly Prayer."
So we've got Jesus advocating (apparently) cannibalism, and consuming blood, which any good Jew knows is wrong. Jesus knows it, too. I'm no longer shocked that people wanted to toss him off the brow of a high hill. I hope I can say that! Jesus is doing the exact opposite of turning down the temperature between himself and his opponents. In fact, the traditional adherents of the other two Abrahamic religions agree that consuming blood and the flesh of various "unclean" animals is wrong.
Hear the questions in your head; give them a fair hearing in this context: Are you saying that your father is God? You're saying that God sent you down from Heaven, and that we're going to eat your flesh and drink your blood if we want to be in Heaven with God? C'mon, man!
This is why the opponents of Jesus will essentially say later in paraphrase, "We know your family. You didn't come down from anywhere, unless it was Jerusalem after a feast." Jesus responded to this by saying that they weren't Abraham's children at all, but sons of their father, the devil. Not exactly friendly kitchen table chat between family and friends.
A note on "Truly, truly, I say to you": In a way, "truly, truly" is a very unhelpful translation. It's probably better to leave it untranslated as, "Amen, amen..." That way we have a better chance to understand that he's prophesying here. He's doing a very similar thing in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-6). Notice how often he says there, "You have heard it said...but I say to you..."
Over in Mark 2, Jesus and the apostles get in trouble for picking the heads off the grain because they were hungry. They were told that it violated the law of Moses. (It didn't.) The leaders for whatever reason added stricter rules than the Scriptures themselves contained. Jesus starts telling the story of the time King David and his men were on the run and were hungry. They broke into the Temple and ate the Bread of the Presence. Bread of the Presence. Hold that thought.
Jesus essentially said that even if we'd violated the law, he's "Lord of the Sabbath." We're used to hearing people talk about the Lord in America. Even people who hardly dare to cross the threshold of a church. But for Jesus to do it, for St. John to do it, for St. Paul to do it in his letter to the Philippians, it sounded crazy. To just take Paul's example, it traces back to the prophet Isaiah. In context, it's the Father. The Name. So St. Paul is saying that Jesus is God, as the Father is God.
[Random Star Trek aside, for illustrative purposes: In 2370, the "new" (NCC-1701-D) Enterprise encountered a ship crashed on the surface of a Dyson sphere, a real 20th century idea consisting of an artificial enclosure around a star. Theoretically, the energy from the star could be captured and used to fuel an entire civilization on the inside surface of the sphere. While investigating, an engineering away team led by Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge discovered at least one person alive in the transporter, their molecular pattern being maintained by a jury-rigged configuration that kept him alive. When the transporter was energized, the man emerged: Captain Montgomery Scott (Ret.) former Chief Engineer of two previous starships Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk (NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-A). In approximately 2295, Captain Scott was on his way to a retirement colony as a passenger on a small ship that encountered the Dyson sphere and its automated security measures. As a result, the ship crashed. After Captain Scott was rescued from the transporter where he existed for 75 years, suffice to say that the Enterprise got herself into a right old mess on the inside of the Dyson sphere. La Forge and Scott revive his ship, the Jenolan, to assist the Enterprise in rescuing itself. In a discussion about transferring power to the Jenolan's sublight engines, La Forge protests that Scott's methods could be dangerous and fatal, quoting regulations pertinent to the situation. Scott replied, "Forget it...I wrote it...she'll hold."]
Jesus comes in confrontation as the Lawgiver, able to give the authoritative interpretation of the Law given to the descendants of Abraham, as well as to explain its ultimate meaning and purpose. Even if we could not see that John understood Jesus to be God in human flesh from his Prologue (1:1-18), even if we missed the connection to the prophet Isaiah in St. Paul's later letters, Jesus would have to be God, or crazy, to claim the authority to modify what is acceptable on the Sabbath. We're so used to Jesus, many of us, that the enormity of his claims don't shock us as they probably should. To this point indeed, Jesus later says, "Before Abraham was, I am." (8:58b)
One important question: Are we certain it is right to say that this "Bread of Life" discourse (length debated) is about the Eucharist/Lord's Supper? I suppose it might not be. On the other hand, all 3 of the other Gospels have a passage where Jesus takes bread and wine, and explicitly tells them to celebrate the Lord's Supper in commemoration of His death. This Gospel has this chapter, and this text. St. Paul says he received his instructions on the Supper from Jesus Himself, and is handing them on to us (1 Corinthians 11:23-30). By the way, Jesus's resurrection is the whole linchpin of it remaining as a sacred ritual for all Christians. You could remember a dead person--like Anthony Bourdain, for example--by eating something. You could pour one out for the homies, so to speak, as demonstrated by the vocal group Boyz II Men in the music video for "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday." But in ordinary life, death is just death. And it would win, but for the fact of His resurrection. This is why v. 26 in 1 Cor. 11 ends with "...you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." His glorious return will mean they is nothing for which to wait. A dead man can't lead anyone to Heaven. A dead prophet who claimed to be the Ancient of Days might be a curiosity, but that'd be otherwise pretty pathetic. This is why St. Paul is so mad in 1 Cor. 15: because with no resurrection of Christ, we will not be raised. Without our bodies, there is no obvious connection between this life, and the eternal. And if Jesus had stayed dead, it's perfectly reasonable to give Jesus's opponents in the Gospels the last word. But if you kill a man some call a blasphemer, and he comes back to life, you lose the argument.
By the way, people don't come back to life! Don't get used to it! That's weird. It'll be weird and completely nuts until the end of this world. Sometimes, I wish for everyone to go to churches with those padded chairs; I've hung out with youth groups at Presbyterian churches, Baptists, and Methodists. I know we have them in the Catholic Church. Let's pray that every church, every community in Christ, is a safe place for everyone, especially kids. All that said, what we actually do and believe as Christians is...outside the norm. Christianity is bonkers. If you don't wonder if you're crazy for believing any of it, you left out the good parts.
I'll leave you to my List of Doom with respect to the Catholic Church's authority, and its particular dogmas, but I'll say this: Jesus could have simply said, "Trust in me" here; he didn't need to tell us to eat him. He doesn't need to say that we'll remain in him by eating him; he doesn't need to contrast himself as the Bread of Life with the manna in the desert. They died; we're not going to die, at least not permanently. This is combative here, and pretty flowery, just for a mere memorial. Every time we do it, it's His death, but on the victorious side. The follow-up will be talking about theological differences, and the motivations for holding them.
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