Jesus is the fullness of the law and the prophets.  To go to him means to hear words of eternal life and to know the Holy One of God. 

Those who murmur now are not the religious leaders among the Jews but Jesus’ own disciples.  They thus show that they think they no longer need to go to him, to follow him.  For, like the religious leaders, they, too, find his words shocking; they cannot bear to hear them.

And by what kind of logic, really, can they accept him to be the bread from heaven?  After all, they know him as Joseph’s son, and they also know his mother.  Besides, what meaning can there be in his saying that they should eat his flesh and drink his blood?  Is it not foolish, really, to take as divine, and giving eternal life, one who is human?

For us humans to go to Jesus, the Father must first draw us. 

Yet rather than ease their shock, Jesus speaks to the disciples of a greater shock still.  And it will hit them when they see him go up where he has been.  He also admits that what he says sounds foolish to humans, flesh that they are, weak and headed to death.  For his words are Spirit and life.  Hence, the Spirit must step in for the flesh to find his words wise.

No, there is no doubt that it is hard for us flesh to grasp what Jesus says.  It seems it is a struggle for John, too, to express how to match the divine and the human.  For he makes Jesus say, “his flesh is true food” and say also, “the flesh is of no avail.”

So, for us humans to get it, and to go to Jesus also, the Father must first grant it to us.  Only when the Father first draws the flesh can it, then, be on the same wavelength as the Spirit.  It is, yes, a matter of grace.

But it does not have to do with “cheap grace.”  For if the Spirit truly steps in, we will grasp that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come and die.  The Spirit will make us see wisdom in the greatest and most shocking folly of all, the cross.  Yes, the Spirit will guide us into all truth, so that we can bear what we find hard to bear.  We shall, then, grasp that to live happily forever is to follow Jesus Christ (SV.EN III:384).  In self-denial and in the service of the poor.

Lord Jesus, we go to you and to no other.  For you fulfill the law and the prophets, you have the words of eternal life.  Send us your Spirit, so that we may truly know you as the Holy One of God, follow you, and go up to the cross with you and thus show we truly love and live what we celebrate when we eat your flesh and drink your blood.  Grant, yes, that we become one flesh with you, make up one body with you. 

25 August 2024
21st Sunday in O.T. (B)
Josh 24, 1-2a. 15-17. 18b; Ephes 5, 21-32; Jn 6, 60-69